You're My Chosen
by Eiri Wise
Summary: Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. R&Rs are greatly appreciated!
1. Pointless Fun

**A/N:** _Okay, so I have been out of the fic-writing world for a while - I've just been reading lately - but I finally found a show that I love enough to start writing again. I'm a bit rusty, so sorry if this got a bit long-winded.  
_**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion._

**Chapter One:**"Pointless Fun"_ \- Paige enlists Walter's help in convincing Ralph to go to a school dance._

"That was exhausting," Paige complained, toeing off her heeled boots and flopping down onto the cracked leather couch just inside the door of the garage, "I need a nap." She covered her eyes with her forearm and let out a deep breath as the others filed in, murmuring their agreements after a long day of annual testing at Homeland. There had been written portions, stress tests, psych evaluations, and interview after interview conducted by agents with shining black suits and smileless faces. Even Sylvester, who was more inclined to the dull side of things, had been itching for a bit of action by the end of the day.

"Mm," Walter grunted, sitting at the end of the couch, right where Paige's bare feet ended. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, noting how the liaison's breathing immediately evened out to a slow, steady pace. He envied the ability of Normals to fall asleep so quickly; his mind was always racing and he was lucky if he drifted off less than two hours after closing his eyes.

No sooner had Paige fallen asleep than an alert on her phone began sounding off, and she jackknifed into a sitting position with a loud groan. "Already?" She sighed and swung her feet over the side of the couch, reaching for her shoes, "I have to go get Ralph from school." She stood, teetered, and almost fell back before Walter reached out and steadied her with a firm hand to the middle of her back.

"I'll drive," he said, not a question but a fact. Walter O'Brien only stated facts, after all.

"Oh, Walter," she shook her head and picked up her purse, "you don't have to do that. Stay. Rest. You've had a long day."

"_You've_ had a long day," he corrected. "I used maybe 4% of my intellectual concentration on those guys – I got bored, you got tired. Come on," he pushed himself up and grabbed his keys from the end table, "I don't mind."

She hesitated, but then nodded, "Okay. Thanks, Walter." He nodded like it was nothing and led her out to his car. He knew the way to Ralph's school without even thinking about it, and he was able to let his mind wander as he navigated the busy LA streets. Paige had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, head against the door frame and hands folded neatly in her lap, lips parted slightly and a dainty whistling noise escaping from between them every so often. Walter smiled, making a mental note to point out that noise. He knew that, if it was anyone else, she would be embarrassed or offended by such a comment, but she liked it when he teased her. She said it made him seem more "like a real boy."

She was still sleeping when he got to the school and he didn't want to wake her, but he'd run into this problem before; the school wouldn't let him pick up Ralph on his own without an in-person forewarning from Paige. He wasn't the boy's family, after all. Not technically, no matter how differently he felt. He knew only Paige could enter the school.

Fortunately, the kids had all filed out for the day and Walter saw a familiar dark-haired boy making a beeline for the beat-up old car. He stepped out to fold his seat forward, pressing one finger to his lips to make sure Ralph didn't wake his sleeping mother, and then smirked like it was some kind of super secret mission. He pulled the seatbelt over the boy's chest himself – though logically he knew Ralph could probably design his own safety system that could be implemented in cars everywhere tomorrow – before getting back into his seat and pulling away from the curb.

"How was your day, Ralph?" He asked quietly, eyes on the rearview mirror.

Ralph shrugged and looked out the window, "They won't let me stay in from recess anymore."

Walter let out a knowing chuckle, "Let me guess: 'You need fresh air, social interaction, et cetera.'" Ralph nodded to confirm this. "Yeah, they told me the same thing. I will say this, though: You have to keep your body healthy. You know that, right? And that's not just eating good food and washing your hands – you have to exercise and breathe good air and be in the sunlight. Maybe later we can sit down and come up with a fun idea to help you with that."

Ralph smiled and Walter couldn't help but smile back, though he knew the boy couldn't see it. That smile always made him feel ten pounds lighter, which he knew was impossible. But that was how he felt.

Walter drove them back to the garage and, thinking the single mother was finally getting some well-deserved sleep, he carefully carried her back inside and eased her onto the couch, then ushered Ralph into the kitchen for a snack. They talked about classes for a while before Sylvester hijacked the child to play a few games of chess and Walter slipped upstairs to his loft, lying down on the bed to close his eyes for a few minutes. A few minutes soon turned into a few hours and he finally fell asleep, not waking until 7:09 that night, when a heavy, hearty smell wafted up to his nose and pushed his eyes open.

He stumbled down the stairs, stomach rumbling, dress shirt wrinkled and the top two buttons undone. "Who's cooking?" He mumbled, rubbing his eyes, and was surprised to find the answer was Paige, bustling from stove to counter while the rest of the team tried to help however they could.

"Eggplant Parmesan and tomato-basil soup," Happy said with a screwed up expression. "Doesn't sound like real food, but at least it smells good."

"You are going to love it," Paige said definitively, dipping down to peek through the oven door.

Walter opened the refrigerator door to retrieve a bottle of water, his eyes never leaving the liaison. "Not that I'm not happy to have real food instead of take-out, but why are you still here? I would have thought you and Ralph would want to get home."

"He said you guys were going to talk about some...health plan? Besides, we haven't had a team dinner in about a month and I thought it would be nice. Cabe's gonna be here around seven-thirty. Hope it's okay."

"It's fine," Walter said, taking a long gulp of water. Sure, he had about three different projects he wanted to be working on and six case files he still hadn't written to submit to Homeland, but he could make time for dinner and a boy-genius. He'd just stay up an extra hour (or five) tonight. "Ralph," he called when he spotted the boy tracing invisible patterns between the chips in the tiled floor, "come help me set the table?"

"Okay." Ralph hopped up and took the plates Walter pulled down from a cabinet, then followed him to the long table just outside of the kitchen. "Can we do it the geometrical way?"

"Is there any other way?" The man smiled and let Ralph go first, placing a square plate on each of the seven rectangular place settings. Walter followed, placing a round bowl on every plate. They spent a few minutes folding cloth napkins into triangles and laying them over the bowls and then arranging the silverware on either side of the settings. "Perfect," Walter clapped a hand on Ralph's shoulder, pulling him close for a moment before letting him move away again. "Now, let's talk about that exercise thing."

They spent the next fifteen minutes coming up with a plan, that Ralph would go outside for every recess, even if it was just to read a book in the sun, and would join Walter and Toby for "sports day" once a week. He'd probably end up being the better athlete of the three of them, but if they were going to embarrass themselves, at least they'd do it together. All the while, Paige watched on from the kitchen, between stirring and chopping and flipping, smiling at the way Walter gesticulated when he spoke to her son – the way her son smiled and nodded whenever he did so. After Cabe arrived a few minutes later, she called them over to eat and noticed how Ralph automatically situated himself between her and Walter, politely asking her to cut his eggplant and then, at Walter's suggestion, requesting they be in geometrics. Dinner was...amazing. The eggplant Parmesan was delicious, as was the accompanying tomato-basil soup and Italian bread. There was red wine for those who indulged (Happy, Toby, Paige, and Cabe), and iced tea for those who didn't (Walter, Sylvester, and Ralph). There was no dessert because, as Paige put it, she could "never quite get the hang of desserts," so they dug some slightly-frostbitten iced cream out of the freezer and did up a makeshift sundae bar with honey-roasted peanuts, licorice bites, chopped pineapples, and chocolate sauce. Ralph had two bowls, and Paige informed them that he ate more when he was having fun and didn't want the night to end. This made Walter smile, if only because he'd always noticed Ralph eating more than usual when the whole team was together.

It was nine-thirty when Cabe announced he had to leave, Happy and Sylvester went off to their respective projects, and Toby settled in in front of his computer to watch a movie with his headphones on. "Are you taking off?" Walter asked when he caught Paige going through her purse.

"In a little bit, but first," she pulled her hand out of the bag, a folded sheet of paper between her fingers, "can I talk to you about something?"

He glanced down and saw the seal from Ralph's school stamped on the corner of the paper. "Is Ralph in trouble? Because we got that recess thing worked out."

"No, I know," she smiled to calm him, "and he's not in trouble. This," she handed it to him, "is actually about the school charity festival." Walter unfolded it and read as she spoke. "They do games and a bake sale and a silent auction, but that's mostly for the adults. The big thing for the kids is a dance."

He'd finished reading the paper before she finished her first sentence, but he let her continue because, well, he liked hearing her voice. When she stopped speaking and didn't start again, he realized she'd finished but he didn't know what to take away from it. "So..." he handed the sheet back, "you're recruiting chaperones?"

"I want Ralph to go to the dance," she rolled her eyes at him, stuffing the flier back into her purse. "He went to Billy's party last week and they've been having lunch together with another boy and girl from their grade – he's on a good path here. I'd really like him to keep it going."

"By...going to a dance. I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"It's something fun, something social. He can drink that gross sherbert-pineapple punch and listen to those stupid Kidz Bop songs and feel uncomfortable any time a girl walks too close to him during a slow song." Paige's eyelashes fluttered, like she was thinking back to a fond memory.

"You make it sound so appealing," Walter deadpanned, reaching for his glass of iced tea.

She threw her hands up, "No, it is! Because it's normal! And I know," she rushed on before Walter could open his mouth, "that I'm not supposed to say 'normal,' and you know I love Ralph exactly the way he is, but be honest: If you'd had the opportunity for normal social interaction when you were growing up, would you have been _worse_ off? Would Sylvester or Happy or Toby?"

There was a moment of silence as Walter pursed his lips and looked around at his team. Happy was pounding on a copper panel with more force than necessary, Sylvester was nudging a ruler back into place on his desk, Toby was trying to angle his computer screen away so no one could see he'd switched over to a poker website, and then there was Ralph. Ralph was sitting cross-legged in Walter's favorite chair, writing something down in a three-subject notebook, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Paige was right. He was a little uncomfortable with how familiar he was becoming with Paige being right. She wasn't like them – she wasn't a genius – but there were some areas that she thrived in, leaving the rest of the team choking on her dust. "What do you want me to do?" Walter asked by way of response.

"I brought it up with Ralph while you were sleeping, and he doesn't want to go. I thought maybe you could convince him."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"You and Ralph, you see things the same way," Paige said with a shrug. "When you tell him things, he understands. If you could find a way to make it sound appealing, I think he'd listen."

Walter nodded, thinking it through. "Okay," he said slowly, "okay, let me talk to him." He walked across the room and knelt in front of the boy, Paige standing just behind.

Ralph stopped writing and put his notebook down in his lap, "Hi, Walter."

"Hey, bud," the man smiled, putting a hand on the boy's knee, "can we talk about something?"

"Yeah."

"Your mom told me there's a festival coming up at your school, but you don't want to go. Why is that?"

Ralph pulled his lips to the side and looked away for a moment before refocusing. "I don't see the point of dancing. I don't learn anything."

There was a set look to the boy's face that Walter recognized well. He stood and took a step toward the woman who stood behind him. "Paige, could you maybe give me a minute?"

"Why?"

"It's just," he glanced over his shoulder, "I'm about to tell Ralph something that I never thought I'd say, and I don't really want anyone else bearing witness to it." She hesitated, but in the end she took three big steps backward and went back to the kitchen to put the leftovers in Tupperware bins.

Walter went back to Ralph. "Can I tell you a secret, Ralph?"

The boy perked, leaning forward; Walter's secrets were always really cool math and science hacks. "Yes."

"Sometimes," Walter picked at a loose thread on the chair, "it's okay to switch your brain off."

Ralph pondered this for a moment with a crease in his forehead, "That would kill you."

"It's an expression. Look," Walter moved to sit next to Ralph on the chair, barely enough room for both of them to fit so he sat as far forward as possible, "what I mean is, you don't have to analyze everything all the time. Sometimes it's not about facts and figures, equations and algorithms. Sometimes you can just have fun."

"Equations are fun," Ralph protested, still not understanding.

"This is a different kind of fun." Walter was in dangerous territory here, talking about things he didn't understand. And if he said something in a gray area like this, he could end up being wrong. That was bad enough when it was just him, but he couldn't be wrong when it came to Ralph – he wouldn't. So he thought. Thought back to the one dance he'd ever enjoyed, crashing a charity auction on a mission with the team, the soft skin of Paige's back beneath his palm, her body warming his as they swayed to the gentle, twinkling music.

"Think of dancing," he said carefully, "like dreaming. People like you and I, we can control our dreams if we want, but it's funner when they're just those weird, crazy ones, right?"

"I rode a troodon once," Ralph said in lieu of a yes, "I know I could never really do that, but it was fun anyway."

"Exactly," Walter smiled. "Dancing is like that. You aren't controlling the situation or thinking about everything. It's just something you do with your friends for pointless fun, like riding a troodon, and it can feel surprisingly good."

There was a long beat of silence while Ralph considered this, and finally he said, "I don't know how to dance."

"You're ten," Walter laughed, "no ten-year-old knows how to dance." Ralph continued to stare at him, anxiety written all over his face, and he felt himself crumble inside. "Paige!" He called out, and the speed at which she came back into the room made him sure she'd been eavesdropping the whole time. "Do you have some of those, um...stupid Kidz Bop songs?"

"I can get some." She wiggled her phone out of her back pocket and pulled up a music app, typing in the information and hooking the device up to the jack that ran to the wall speakers. The music started, obnoxiously upbeat and overpowering in the vocals, which were layers of children singing together. Paige wrinkled her nose, "This is not the way Beyonce is supposed to sound." She gave a full body shudder, but refocused when she saw Walter pulling Ralph up from the chair.

"I don't claim to be a master dance," the man said as a disclaimer, "but hopefully I can offer some insight. Now, if you were thinking while you were dancing, you could count out the beats and move to it. But we're not thinking, right? We're turning the brain off. I think your mother would tell you to _feel_ the beat – feel the vibration of it in your feet, the way it thumps in your chest. Then just do what feels right." He took a step back and waited, but the boy didn't move.

"I don't know, Walter," Ralph looked up nervously. "Can you do it first?"

Oh, god, this was going to be embarrassing. But he seemed to be making good progress so far and he didn't want to let the boy down now. "Okay," he said for the umpteenth time, and he was beginning to wonder if his vast vocabulary was slipping. "Let's give this a try."

"No, really, it wasn't that bad," Paige tried to assure Walter, but she was still laughing. To her credit, she'd held it in until Ralph was out of earshot, so as not to discourage her son. After all, it wasn't him she was laughing at. Ralph danced like any ten-year-old; Walter, on the other hand.

"I'll admit, I got a little carried away." Walter winced as he worked his shoe and sock off, propping his foot up on a stool as Paige opened the first aid satchel. Once both he and Ralph had loosened up a little, they started to get into the dance, jumping around and flailing their bodies like madmen. That's when Walter had had the bright idea to try a jump-kick, like the ones he'd seen guitarists do onstage, and split the skin of his big toe open when he jammed it against the end table.

Paige sprayed it with antiseptic and dabbed the blood away before spraying it again and leaning in to examine it. "It's not deep, but it's right on your tippy-toe so it's gonna be really uncomfortable until it heals." She peeled open a circular bandage and laid it over the cut, then secured it with a strip of medical tape. She was putting the satchel back when Ralph walked into the room.

"I'm kinda tired, Mommy," the boy admitted, letting loose a huge yawn as proof.

"All right, honey," she smiled softly at him, "let me get our stuff together and we'll head home."

He nodded and pulled himself up into one of the counter stools next to Walter. "Okay. Hey, Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"Can Walter come to the dance, too?"

Paige dropped the Tupperware bowl she'd just picked up, but played it off as an accident and quickly added it back to her stack. "You mean you want to go to the dance now?"

"Walter made it seem really fun. Can you come?" He asked the man now, "You could see me dance and it could count as our sports day."

Walter looked up at Paige, who was staring back at him with a dumbfounded expression. "How about you remind your mom tomorrow morning to see if they need some more chaperones?" He reached out to push the hair out of Ralph's face, "Because I think that would be a really cool sports day."


	2. Just A Bug

**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion._

**Chapter Two:**"Just A Bug"_ \- Walter overreacts to Ralph having the flu._

Paige held her phone between her ear and shoulder as she poured a can of chicken noodle soup into a bowl. "Hey, Walter, it's Paige. I'm so sorry but I'm not going to be able to make it in today; Ralph is running a fever – a real one this time, I used a brand new thermometer – and his usual babysitter is busy today."

"Is Ralph okay?" Walter asked, and Paige was keenly aware that the previous sound of shuffling papers had ceased.

It was touching that he cared so much. "It's just a bug; he'll be fine in a few days. I'm sorry about work; you can still call if you need help with-"

"I don't care about work," he cut her off. Words nobody ever thought they'd hear Walter say. "If Ralph's sick, there's nowhere else you should be."

"That's very sweet, Walter," she couldn't help the way her voice broke a little, thick with emotion. "Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Nowhere else you should be," he repeated. "You stay with him until he's better; don't worry about work." She tried to thank him again, but he'd already clicked off. She sighed but smiled, distractedly moving to the microwave. It wasn't until a few seconds later, when there were several loud pops and cracks and a bright flash of light, that Paige realized her mistake. She looked down at the could bowl of soup that still sat on the counter and then at the smoke that was pooling from the microwave.

"Crap," she grumbled, throwing open the window to suck the smoke out and pouring the soup into a sauce pan to heat on the stove instead. That was it for her microwave, and she'd have to take money out of her savings account to buy a new one. When her salary had gone up, so had her expenses. A better school for Ralph, payments for a new car, more expensive insurance because of the nature of her job, and a much higher electric bill from all the gadgets the team had given her son to bring home. Any extra money she had – maybe a hundred from each check – went directly into her savings. She'd have to wait until Ralph was better to go to the kitchen store, however, and she wasn't looking forward to the next few days without it.

She thought for a few moments, until the hissing of the overflowing pot drew her attention back to the stove. "Double crap," she whined, reaching for the lid and whimpering when half of it dipped into the pot and splashed scalding broth onto her palm. Not thinking, she grabbed the bare metal handle with the same hand, burning it further, and threw the pot into the sink, breaking the casserole dish that had been soaking there.

"Mommy?" Ralph had wandered in from his bedroom, pale and tired, but concerned.

"It's okay, honey," she assured him, putting on a brave face and clutching a dish towel to her hand, "go on back to bed. I'll bring you something to eat in a minute." He turned and made his way back to bed, and a second later there was a knock at the door. She turned off the stove burner and, still clutching the rag, went to open the door.

She was greeted by the scrunched up nose of Walter O'Brien. "What is that smell?"

"Nuked cell phone and burning flesh," she said, eyes following him as he invited himself in, "what are you doing here?"

"Burning fl-" His eyes went wide and he spun on her, taking her rag-wrapped hand and holding it up to inspect. "You're not supposed to wrap burns in cloth; your skin could fuse to the fibers and that's painful. It looks like it's just first-degree, though," he said, squinting at it. "Might blister a bit, but that's all. First aid kit and plastic wrap?" She raised her eyebrows, but directed him to the objects he asked for. He smeared burn cream over her hand and then wrapped a strip of plastic around it, securing it with medical tape. The pain was already going away, soothed by the numbing agent in the cream, and Paige's head was beginning to clear again.

"So, what are you doing here?" She asked again.

"You said Ralph was sick," he shifted uncomfortably. "I wanted to check on him."

"I got off the phone with you just a few minutes ago," she stated.

He shrugged, "I may have sped a little."

She laughed, tilting her head to the side and regarding him with a soft smile, "He'll be fine, Walter. Like I said, it's a bug."

He looked around the kitchen, as if suddenly realizing where he was. "What happened in here?"

"I told you," she frowned, "nuked cell phone, burning flesh. Oh, and broken dish," she gestured to the sink.

"Are _you_ sick?" He asked, not rudely, but genuinely concerned.

"I got distracted for two seconds and disaster struck." She didn't need to tell him that it was their conversation that had distracted her – that she was constantly surprised by the level of care he showed toward her and her son.

He made a noise and looked around again, "I'd say you're being dramatic, but I can see that you're not. Where's Ralph?"

"In bed. I was going to bring him some soup." Remembering, she retrieved the pan from the sink and examined the soup inside; it looked edible, so she made sure no glass had stuck to the pot and drained it back into its bowl, sticking a spoon inside.

Walter held out his hands, "Can I take it to him?"

She handed the bowl over with ease, "I'm sure he'd love to see you."

He grinned, "Thanks." He went to the room at the end of the hall, where just last week he'd installed a cooling system for a larger computer, and peeked around the door. "Hey, buddy."

"Walter!" The boy smiled weakly and started to sit up, but seemed to reconsider when a wave of nausea hit and he laid back down. "What are you doing here?"

"Your mom said you were sick," he slipped his messenger bag off of his shoulder and sat down on the mattress, "I wanted to come check on you."

"But what about your new tracking software?" He must have heard Walter and Happy discussing the equipment idea the day before; Cabe was assisting with a case in Washington that week and they were going to use the time to put their idea into action, unless they got a private client.

Walter smirked and looked down at the bowl in his hands, "This seemed more important. The software will still be there later. Here," he put the bowl onto the nightstand and helped Ralph sit up, propping some pillows up behind him so he didn't have to count on his own strength. When he was done, he placed the bowl in his lap, "How about you try eating something?"

He sat there while Ralph spooned the broth into his mouth with slow, shaking hands, waiting quietly for the fifteen minutes it took the boy to finish off the bowl. "You're much better at being sick than I was," Walter laughed. "Even though I knew that nutrition was a key step in getting better, I refused to eat when I had the flu; I was so stubborn, it drove my parents crazy."

Ralph didn't laugh, or respond in any way. Instead he went remarkably pale and began flailing under the covers, pushing them away from his body and jolting out of bed. Walter followed to the bathroom, where Paige was already leaning over her son, rubbing soft circles against his back as he retched into the toilet. Walter froze and realized that it was just now hitting him that Ralph was sick – before, he could have just been lazing around in bed, or maybe down with a slight cold, but now he could see that he was really sick. It unsettled him.

When Ralph had finished living up to his name, Walter helped Paige walk him back to bed, then sat back down and held his hand while she took his temperature. It read out as 100ºF, and Walter finally felt what people meant when they said their heart dropped into their stomach. "Paige," he said softly, and gestured toward the door.

She nodded and smiled at her son, "I'm going to get you some more medicine, okay? Rest up." She stood and lead Walter out of the room and back to the bathroom, where she busied herself by running cold water over a rag and taking a box of childrens medicine from the cabinet.

"He's clammy," Walter whispered urgently.

"He has the flu," she answered with ease.

"His temperature is 100º – that's high. That's too high," he ran a hand over his face, "we should take him to the hospital."

She turned around and fixed him in a patient gaze, "Walter, he has the flu."

"How are you so calm about this?" The man demanded, voice cracking slightly.

She shrugged and fiddled with the box of medicine. "Kids get the flu. He's had it before and he'll have it again. Of course I'm worried every time, but this is the first day and the first day is always the worst; if his fever doesn't break by tomorrow, I'll take him to the doctor."

"But," Walter shifted, not really sure where to look or what to think, "maybe there's something we could do to make him get better, faster. I could call Toby or- Is something funny?" He asked when Paige chuckled.

"No, not funny," she shook her head, "just...familiar."

"Familiar?"

"You, Walter," she smiled, "are acting the exact same way I did when Ralph was nine months old and got sick for the first time. Every tenth of a degree is a volcano, every hiccup is an eruption."

"Good metaphor," he complimented absentmindedly.

"Thanks." She reached out and touched his arm, just briefly because she knew he wasn't big on contact, "But Walter, do you think I'm a good mom?"

This caught him by surprise, "What? Of course. Ralph could never hope for a better one."

She had to choke back her emotion to continue, "And you trust me, right?"

"Of course," he repeated, softer this time.

"Then trust me when I say, this is normal. This is a basic kind of normal that even geniuses can't avoid, and he will be okay."

They stared at each other for a long moment, but finally Walter blinked heavily and offered up a tight-lipped grin. "All right, I believe you."

"Good," she replied happily. "Now, will you go grab a glass of water for him?" Walter nodded and went to the kitchen while Paige slipped back into the bedroom. When he returned, she'd laid the cold rag over her son's forehead and was holding out a tiny cup of purple liquid for him to take, which he did with a grimace and a gag, washing it down with the water Walter brought him.

"How are you feeling, Ralph?"

"A little better since I threw up," he said with heavy-lidded eyes, one hand wrapped around his mother's.

Walter bit his lip briefly, then reached down for his bag. "HeysoI, uh, I brought you something." Ralph's eyes opened a bit wider, wondering if it would be new encryption or technology or an advanced mathematics book. Instead, Walter pulled a one-eared, stuffed brown bear with a few linen patches between the tufts of fuzz. "This is Iompróidh Breoite – it means 'sick bear.'" He ran his fingers over the patch where the other ear used to be, "I had rubella when I was seven, and Megan made me da buy me this," he paused, tightening his jaw and pursing his lips. When he spoke again, the slight trace of Irish accent that had slipped through was gone. "She told me Iompy would make me better, and I used him every time I got sick after that. I thought maybe he could work for you, too." He handed it over and Ralph quickly grasped the bear to his chest. "Don't worry," Walter added to Paige, "it's been sterilized."

"Thank you, Walter." Even sick, the boy was nothing if not polite. He looked at his mother and asked, "Is it okay if I go to sleep?"

"Of course, sweetie," she brushed some hair behind his ear and stood to leave, and Ralph immediately turned onto his side and buried his face into the top of the bear's head, closing his eyes. Paige and Walter walked out to the living room, sitting side by side on the couch, and Paige propped her bare feet up on the coffee table. "It was very sweet of you to let Ralph use your bear," she said after a few minutes of silence.

Walter shrugged uncomfortably, "Not really a big deal."

She turned a little to face him, "The question I have is: Why? I mean, you don't believe in stuff like that. A stuffed bear that makes kids all better. So why would you give something like that to Ralph?"

"Because you believe in it," he replied easily, glancing at her before fixing his eyes on the blank TV screen. "Not in magic bears, but in the comfort of things. You don't just want to raise him with facts and figures, but connection and sentiment. I appreciate that, I respect it, and I would like to contribute in any way I can."

She couldn't respond to that – the lump in her throat wouldn't let her. So she swallowed it and chose a different focal point, "But you don't believe in stuff like that, so why did you use it whenever you got sick?"

"To make my sister happy," he smiled. "She always thought she had some hand in making me better when I was sick. Never mind the doctors visits and medications; she was convinced that the bear she gave me was what made me better, and I was happy to let her be happy."

"You're a good brother," Paige told him, and this made him smile. She knew how much he loved Megan, and it broke her heart that he always seemed relieved when someone told him he was good at loving her, like he doubted it.

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, with Paige flipped channels on the TV and Walter scribbling equations onto a Post-It note he found on the coffee table. She asked him a few times if he needed to get back to work, but each time he made an indiscernible noise and went back to writing, so eventually she stopped asking. She didn't ask before she made lunch for the three of them, and then dinner. She didn't comment the six or so times an hour Walter got up to check on Ralph, even though the boy spent most of the day sleeping, or point out the numerous times his phone rang and he denied the call without even checking to see who it was. And when it got late and she was ready for bed, she didn't ask him if he was staying. She simply told him she was going to sleep and left him to continue lining sticky notes across her wall, filled with tiny equations she couldn't begin to comprehend.

She was surprised, then, when she entered the living room early the next morning and Walter wasn't asleep on the couch or making what would be the first of his daily twelve cups of coffee. She fixed a pot for herself and went to check on her son as it brewed, and the sight that greeted her made her heart leap. Walter was in the bed, sitting up with one foot on the floor and his back against the wall, but fast asleep. Ralph was asleep with his head on the man's chest, a book between them. He must have woken up at some point during the night and Walter was reading him back to sleep; he'd never left, and that warmed her.

She went back to the kitchen and fixed two mugs of coffee, adding her boss's standard two sugars and just a splash of milk and taking them into the bedroom. She put the mugs on the night stand and touched Walter's shoulder softly, breath catching when his eyes fluttered open and he gave her a sleepy, bashful smile. "Hey," he whispered.

"Hey," she said back, handing him his coffee. "You're still here."

"His fever broke around two this morning," Walter said, holding the mug with one hand and running the other over Ralph's hair. "He couldn't get back to sleep, though, so we started reading Journey to the Center of the Earth."

She smiled, "I told you he'd be better; day one is always the worst."

"Now I know for next time," he chuckled lightly.

Paige took a seat at the end of the bed, putting one hand on the blanket above her son's ankle. "Do you need to get back to work, since you know he's going to be okay?"

Walter glanced down at the boy, still fast asleep nestled into the side of his body, and shook his head almost imperceptibly. "They can manage without me." He looked up, "I'd like to stay to make sure he's really better, if that's okay."

"Yeah," she told him, embarrassed by how breathy her voice sounded. "Yeah, of course it's okay."


	3. Extended Contact

**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion. Also, I am not a genius. So don't check anything I make the team say in these stories, okay? I'm actually kind of dumb, and if you call me out on it I will be embarrassed and I will cry._

**Chapter Three:**"Extended Contact"_ \- Paige notes how Walter avoids contact with everyone...except Ralph._

Walter stood very still as Scorpion's latest private client – a middle-aged woman who'd needed some family heirlooms recovered – wrapped around him in a tight hug. He didn't reciprocate, but didn't push her away either. He'd learned from Paige that this was a very rude thing to do, though he still thought it was rude when people touched him without his permission. Happy, Toby, Sylvester, Paige, Cabe, Megan – everyone in his life knew not to reach out for extended contact, and knew not to expect him to initiate any of his own. Why couldn't other people be like that?

"Thank you so much," Mrs. Sheppard said as she pulled back, and Walter felt his body relax as she got further away from him.

"Not a problem," he told her, and it was the truth. It had taken the team less than twenty minutes to track down the long lost merchandise, and another two hours to recover it from the other side of the city. He hadn't allowed Mrs. Sheppard to pay him the full thousand he'd originally quoted, instead asking for only $228, to cover a new part they'd needed for the recovery, gas getting to and from the extraction point, and the admittedly large lunch the team had gone to following the success of the mission. This had caused the woman to begin sobbing, throwing her arms around him and squeezing for an unusually long time.

"All done, boss," Toby said as he and Happy came back into the garage. "Mrs. Sheppard, we packed everything into the trunk of your car; you're good to go."

She gave him a watery smile, "Thank you all, so much." She dabbed at her eyes with the end of her sleeve and sniffled before straightening up and waving goodbye. Happy closed the door behind her and Walter stretched his back.

"I really wish clients would stop hugging me."

"Then you gotta stop being so gosh darn huggable," Paige teased, holding up a sheet of paper. "Are we filing that part under 'surveillance equipment,' or 'B&amp;E equipment'?"

He raised an eyebrow, "We don't have a B&amp;E file."

"I started one."

"Oh, well yeah, put it in that one."

She laughed and the sound filled him. Previously, he'd been funny on accident, mostly when he was being a sarcastic jerk. Lately, though, he'd been putting a little more effort into it. He told himself it was so he could relate to Ralph better – tell him jokes – but he couldn't deny that he loved the sound of Paige's laugh. He watched as she moved to the large filing cabinet they'd invested in when they started taking on more clients, watched as she pulled the bottom drawer out and knelt to put the slip of paper in the correct file. His eyes followed the curve of her back, the way her hair fell in her face, the—

"Earth to Walter," Happy snapped her fingers in front of his eyes and he blinked twice before looking at her. "Welcome back, genius. Did you happen to hear what I just said?"

"No," he said shortly, picking up his coffee cup and moving around his desk to sit. He went to take a sip but the mug was empty and he frowned into it.

Happy sat on the corner of his desk and crossed her arms across her chest, "I said the Internet is running 1.37 seconds slower than normal."

His brow furrowed and he looked up at her, "That's not right. Is it doing it on all the computers, or just yours?"

"Sly's too."

Walter pulled up his own browser and counted that time between page changes, then pulled up his WiFi coding and jumped right into it without another word. After a few minutes, he hit the return key and closed the code box, leaning back with a sigh. "Toby, you are not a hacker," he called out, "if you want to practice your code, do it on a closed circuit and don't contaminate our WiFi." The doctor ducked his head behind his computer and busied himself with a folder on his desk.

Happy's jaw tightened as she looked at Toby, but she let it go and turned her gaze back to the boss. "Thanks, boss," she started to clap him on the shoulder but stopped her hand about an inch above the target, thinking better of it and pushing away from the desk. She went back to her own station and opened her laptop, continuing with whatever she'd been working on before. They all fell into their usual rhythm after that: Sylvester writing equations on his blackboard, Happy engineering a new gadget, Paige filling out some official paperwork, Toby looking through old case studies, and Walter adding a few layers of protection to their wireless network. This went on for three hours, barely a word spoken, until the door of the garage creaked open and they all squinted against the sudden burst of light.

"Hi!" Ralph called to everyone as he entered, dropping his bag on the couch and taking a kiss on the cheek from his mother.

"Hi, honey. Did you thank Billy's mom for giving you a ride?"

He nodded, "Yes. Can I show Walter something?"

"Sure."

Ralph wrestled a shoebox out of his pack and ran to Walter with it. He opened it to reveal a battered old Nintendo system inside, obviously non-operational. "Billy and his parents were going to throw this away because it's broken. It made his dad really sad. Can you help me fix it so I can give it back to them, like a surprise?"

"That's so sweet, Ralph," Paige said, voice thick with pride. "Walter might be busy, though. Why don't you—"

"I'm never too busy," Walter interrupted, letting his hand rest on the boy's shoulder. "Let's see what we're working with here, okay?" He cleared some space on his desk and overturned the box, letting the pieces slide out, then lifted Ralph up onto his lap so they could look at the parts together. "Happy, you want in on this?"

"You kidding?" She was already walking over from her station, "Rebuilding Nintendo systems was how I got started; I could do it in my sleep."

Walter smiled, but gave her a serious look, "But we're going to show Ralph how to do it, right? Not just do it for him."

She nodded knowingly and leaned forward to examine some pieces. "Well, nothing looks burned out, so it's just a matter of testing the individual pieces and wiring everything back together."

"And we can run all of the chips through a modified card reader," Sylvester said, walking up behind them, "see what we're working with."

Walter picked through a few metal and plastic pieces, then gave Ralph a nudge. "See? I think that's a definite yes that we can rebuild it. So why don't you go get all of your homework out of the way while we set some stuff up, and then we can work on it until your mom is ready to go?"

"Okay." The boy slipped down from his lap and retrieved a notebook from his bag, planting himself on the floor in front of the coffee table and scribbling down answers to questions that he could have quite literally answered in his sleep. While he sped through his lessons, Sylvester set up a card reader and Happy retrieved her soldering gun, Toby brought over his coveted multi-console controller and Walter opened a retrieval program he'd written when he was fourteen years old. Paige watched from her desk. Most often she would at least hover around the group, learning alongside her son, but sometimes she just liked to sit back and watch. Watch her son with this oddball group of surrogate aunts and uncles that had no obligation to him, but had decided to love him nonetheless. She'd always read that it takes a village to raise a child, but she'd never believed it. Now she supposed that was because she'd gone seven years as a single parent, far away from her family and friends back home; she'd never had a village before. She was starting to see the merit in it.

Walter was kneeling beside his desk when Ralph finished his homework, digging through the bottom drawer for some programming chips he knew he'd tucked away in a box down there. The boy hopped over and put both of his hands on Walter's shoulder to get his attention. This fascinated Paige, because the man didn't tense or grimace or get that wide-eyed look on his face. On the contrary, he smiled wider than Paige had ever seen him smile before and put one hand on her son's head, saying something that she couldn't hear. Seemingly on instruction, Ralph climbed up into Walter's coveted office chair while the man himself pulled over a hard wood chair from the dining table and sat beside him, and the others soon followed. Paige picked up her paperwork and moved from the couch to her desk, so she could hear what they were talking about.

"Here, Ralph," Sylvester said, tapping a card reader, "put that chip in the smaller slot here." Ralph did so, looking excited as a black screen with white coding came up on the computer screen. They typed and chatted enthusiastically and moved from piece to piece until they'd determined it was all still useable data. There were broken casings and kinked wires, things that needed to be reconnected, and that made it a Happy job, but the others stayed around the desk regardless. This was far from one of their usual group projects – those usually consisted of individual working and heated arguments involving words that Paige didn't even understand – but they all seemed to approach this with the same concentration that they would any other task. The only difference was, they were smiling. Having fun.

"Happy!" Paige had let her focus slide to her computer screen but her eyes snapped back up when Walter said the mechanic's name a little too harshly. "We don't hand soldering guns to ten-year-olds."

She stared back blankly, "I started using a soldering gun when I was five."

"That's different."

"Why is it different?"

For the first time in a long time, Walter didn't have a reasonable answer. "Because," he started uncertainly, "it's Ralph, and it's dangerous." To everyone's surprise, the mechanical genius didn't contest this, but instead touched the metal tip of the gun to the end of a wire while Ralph watched on with a disappointed frown – he'd wanted to use the gun. "Hey," Walter said, putting an arm over the boy's shoulders, "when you're just a little bit older, and your Mom says it's okay, we'll let Happy teach you everything she knows."

"Scoop?"

"Scoop," Happy and Walter said in unison.

Warmed, Paige let the project go on for another hour and a half before pushing back her sleeve to look at her watch and standing with a sigh. "Honey, it's getting pretty late; why don't you start getting ready to go?"

He pouted, which was a rare sight to see. "But Mom, we're almost done."

"The last time I heard that, we were here until eleven and you didn't want to get up for school in the morning." She gave him a sweet but stern smile and gestured toward his bag, "Come on, you know you'll see them tomorrow. It's not the end of the world." The boy nodded begrudgingly and slid out of the chair, moving to tidy up his homework and put it all back in his bag while his mother shrugged into her jacket and picked up her purse.

"We'll keep the Nintendo safe for the night," Toby said, collecting the pieces and putting them carefully back into the box, "and we won't work on it at all without you."

"Thank you," Ralph said politely, sliding the straps of his bag over his shoulders. Walter had risen to help Toby put everything in the shoebox, and Ralph asked him, "Walter, will you be too busy to work on it with me before school tomorrow?"

"I'm never too busy," Walter repeated his statement from earlier, causing Ralph to make the short job across the room to throw his arms around the man's waist in a tight hug. Again, Paige watched. She saw the way Walter's cheeks shone as a genuine grin broke out on his face, and he immediately returned the hug, even going so far as to lift her son off the floor for just a second. Then Ralph detached, waved goodbye to them all, and went to join his mother.

Though she'd been the one to say it was time to go, Paige had a hard time remembering why; she never wanted to be anywhere else lately, and neither did her son. She watched Walter as he took the shoebox and put it on one of the work shelves, smoothing his hands over his tie as he did sometimes when he was distracted with some thought or another. "Honey," she told Ralph, handing him her keys, "can you sit tight for just a second while I talk to Walter?"

"Yes," her son smiled up at her, overjoyed that they weren't leaving right that second. "Can I do math with Sylvester until you're done?" She nodded, rolling her eyes in a good-humored way as he went to join the mathematician – who ever thought she'd have a son who asked permission to do _math_?

She hitched up her purse and crossed the room, following an unassuming Walter into the kitchen and waiting for him to turn away from the refrigerator and notice she was there before she spoke. "Oh," he said when he straightened up with a bottle of water, "I thought you were going. Is everything okay?"

"I just had a question," she said slowly. "About Ralph?"

It seemed that every time she talked to him about Ralph in public lately, it was some worry or another. "I thought you would be happy after today," Walter said, one brow quirked in confusion. "He spent the afternoon at a friend's house, and now he's embarking on a project to surprise his friend's parents. His IQ and EQ are both well at work there."

"No, it's not that," Paige said with a disarming smile, trying to put him at ease. "It's actually more of a curiosity...about you."

"O-kay," he said skeptically.

Now that she was saying it, she wasn't sure exactly _what_ she was saying, or why. She'd just noticed too many times and the curiosity was killing her. She bit her lip and looked down, running her finger over a water ring stain on the counter. "You know how you don't really like being touched?"

"I am aware that I'm uncomfortable with contact," he nodded. "What about it?"

"Why is that?"

He bit the inside of his cheek and thought a moment. "I always have been," he finally decided. "I didn't really get a lot of it growing up, from my parents or other people, except Megan. I guess I never really...understood it. Why do you want to know this, Paige?" He was starting to prickle, the way he always did whenever the topic of family, his past, real things came up.

"I've just noticed that, well, you're not like that with Ralph."

Now both of Walter's eyebrows rose, "What do you mean?"

"You hold Ralph's hand all the time," she pointed out, wondering if he would try to deny it or play it off like it was nothing. "You smooth his hair, hug him, pick him up – I've even seen you give him a piggyback ride."

He looked away, out to the main office area where Sylvester was helping the young boy in question with a section of equation. "Do you remember what I told you when we first met, about Ralph painting your nails?"

She followed his gaze and nodded, "That he wanted to hold my hand, but he couldn't process it. You told me-" Her voice faltered, because she was about to repeat the words that had scared her so terribly almost one year before. She swallowed roughly and continued, "You told me to help him, or he'd never connect with me."

"I'm just trying to make sure he stays connected," Walter said simply, shrugging. "Physical contact is important for emotional development. I didn't get it growing up, neither did any of these guys, and we missed out on some important things because of it."

That would have been a reasonably explanation, but there was a flaw to it. "If it were that easy, it wouldn't be easy," she said, wincing because it sounded so idiotic. "What I mean is," she backtracked, "if you were doing it out of necessity, it would look as tense as when Mrs. Sheppard hugged you earlier. With Ralph, though, it's like you don't even think about it. Like you don't mind at all. Like it's instinct."

There was a long pause and Paige almost gave up on getting a response, because Walter was steadfast staring silently ahead, barely even moving except for the slightly rapid rise and fall of his chest. She'd just taken one step forward, away from him, when he spoke. His voice was softer than she'd ever heard it be – softer than she could have imagined it being – and it was hard to make out the words. "Connection is important." She didn't turn, because she knew that if she looked at him he was close up, raise his guard, and that would be the end of it. Instead, she reached her hand back and smiled with relief when she felt his fingers brush against her palm, just long enough for her to give them a squeeze and then he pulled away. She kept walking, not looking back out of respect for him, and ushered her son toward the door. Her hand tingled the entire drive home.


	4. Puppy Love

**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion. Also, I am not a genius. So don't check anything I make the team say in these stories, okay? I'm actually kind of dumb, and if you call me out on it I will be embarrassed and I will cry._

**Chapter Three:**"Puppy Love"_ \- Walter helps Paige deal with the first time Ralph asks to keep an animal._

~~00~~

"Thanks for coming, Walter," Paige said as they weaved through the crowd of bodies that lined the street, Ralph between them, holding on to one hand each. They'd spent the last three hours at the Easter Day parade, with Ralph catching candies from floats, Paige pointing out the cool costumes and designs, and Walter huffed and grumbled about the ridiculous origins of the holiday to anyone who would listen. Still, he seemed to enjoy himself, picking through the temporary vendors that were taking advantage of the crowd and buying not one, not two, but three stuffed pretzels from three different kiosks, as well as spoiling Ralph with cotton candy and a little robotic bunny that he said Happy could teach the boy to take apart and put back together.

Walter made a noise in the back of his throat and gave an irritated glance to a woman who'd just bumped his shoulder. "We finished the McMillan case early, so there wasn't much else to do."

She wanted to call him on his bluff, because she knew for a fact that geniuses could always find something to do, but she stayed silent. She knew he got uncomfortable when she pointed out his human side – the gentle, caring side that genuinely wanted to do silly things like this – and she didn't want to run the risk of him shutting on her. At least not before the Rose Street Spring Festival, which was coming up in the next two months. "Well, we still appreciate it. Isn't that right, Ralph?"

"Yes," the boy craned his neck to smile up at the man, earning a hand squeeze and a playful bump. Then suddenly, Ralph released both adults' hands and broke free of them, "Whoa!" He shouted as he began to run up the road. In an instant panic, Walter and Paige took off after him, calling heedlessly for him to stop for a few yards until the boy finally came to rest in front of a temporary gated section on the corner.

Walter immediately went to his knees and grabbed Ralph's shoulders, "Ralph, what do you think you're doing?" He was breathless, but not from the run.

"Honey, you cannot just run off like that," Paige said, panting as well, a slight whimper to his voice. "Especially knowing what Mommy and Walter do for a living; do you understand?"

He frowned, as if only then realizing his actions, and looked down at his shoes. "I'm sorry, I just got excited."

Walter looked down and sighed, and without looking up wrapped a hand around the back of the boy's neck and pulled him to his shoulder for a hug. "Never again, okay?" Ralph nodded against the crook of his neck, and after a few beats and some deep breaths, Walter pulled back and tried to wipe the worry away with a smile. "So what was so exciting?"

Hesitantly, Ralph pointed over his shoulder to the fenced area, "The pound!"

The two adults looked past him to the sign that read "Last Chance Dogs – Up For Immediate Adoption," and the two young women sitting in folding chairs while three dogs sunbathed around them. Ralph slid a pamphlet from the Plexiglas case attached to the fence and opened it, eyes skimming the page. "It says the pound doesn't have room for all the dogs anymore," he said somberly, "they're going to put these ones down if they aren't adopted."

"It's more hopeful than it seems," one of the women reassured, putting down her magazine and standing from her chair to come over to them. "We started the day with eleven dogs. Seven puppies and four adults – eight of them have been adopted already."

Walter studied the resting dogs left on the patch of fake grass, "Let me guess: These ones are all over five years old."

She smiled at him, "How'd you know?"

He did not smile back. "Statistically speaking, people want puppies. Very few adult dogs get adopted when there are other options, and these ones are getting on in the late ages of a dog's lifespan; nobody wants a dog that might only have a few years left."

She blanched, then chuckled nervously. "Well, please don't tell any potential adopters that."

"Can I pet them?" Was all Ralph really wanted to know. After getting the go-ahead from his mother and the pound worker, the three entered the pen and the boy made his way over to the dogs, who rolled over easily and let him pet them each in turn.

"That's Jelly," the second woman said of the golden retriever Ralph patted first. "She was born to a stray and spent the first few years of her life on the street. It was actually really surprising that we were able to socialize her at such an old age." When the boy moved on to a chubby Jack Russell terrier, she said, "Hugo. His owner passed away a few months ago and there was no one else that could take him in." Finally, Ralph got to the third dog and hesitated. It was a huge black and brown beast, with long hair like a lion and a thick snout. A Tibetan Mastiff. "That one is Bixby. Don't let his size fool you; he's the sweetest thing ever."

"Tibetan Mastiff's aren't common here," Walter noted, scratching between the dog's ears to put Ralph at ease.

The woman nodded sadly, "A business man brought him back from Asia for his wife. They got rid of him once he started to grow, because they didn't realize how big he'd get." She shook her head, lips turned down in a frown, "I worry he's not going to get adopted. People in LA just don't have room for a dog his size, beautiful as he may be."

"He is at that," Walter agreed, rubbing under the dog's chin.

Paige smirked, "I did not figure you for a dog person, Walter."

"I love dogs," he surprised her by saying. "We had this gorgeous sheepdog when I was growing up – Muiread – who used to sleep in my bed every night." Paige smiled at the lilt in his voice when he pronounced the Irish name, the way it always did when that voice unintentionally snuck out of his mouth. "She was a good dog," he said absentmindedly, rubbing the mastiff's back.

They stayed for a while longer, Ralph bouncing energetically between the three dogs and engaging them in a game of fetch before Paige finally managed to pull him away to rejoin the parade, where the live music was beginning to start. They stayed for another hour, refueling with vendor hotdogs and iced teas and finding a spot to sit on the curb while the bands took turns on the stage that had been erected for this one day only. Every so often, Walter would catch Paige singing along to one of the songs under her breath and he would hold his, straining his ears to pick up every note, every syllable. She had a beautiful voice, speaking _and_ singing, and he wished she would share it more. He wondered briefly if he could still play the guitar – Megan had convinced him to learn as a teenager, and it had been a very simple, mechanical task – and if he could convince Paige to sing more if he played for her.

He noticed at one point that she was shivering. It wasn't terribly cold out, but while he and Ralph had both worn long sleeved shirts and jackets, she'd come in a sleeveless shirt with nothing over it and he knew she would be too proud to admit she was cold, and have her wardrobe challenged. He thought about that night at the charity dance, when he hadn't even known to open the car door for her. He'd learned a lot since then (admittedly the majority of his new information had come from the stupid romantic comedies Paige made the team sit through on movie nights), and he knew what to do now. Very slowly, he slipped out of his jacket and draped it over Paige's shoulders, not asking first because he knew she'd say no. She looked at him for a long moment, then offered her thanks and put her arms through the sleeves and pulled the front closed around her small frame.

"It looks like they're winding down," Paige said fifteen minutes later, and not a moment too soon. Ralph had leaned against Walter and would probably have fallen asleep after much longer, and the man himself was starting to get restless. Not to mention one of his legs had gone numb about forty-five minutes before. "You guys want to head out?"

"Sure," Walter let Ralph get up before he stood and stretched. "Do you guys want more food or anything else before we go? Because I could go for another pretzel." Paige turned him down but Ralph was more than willing to accept another cone of cotton candy, and the man obliged, bringing back both snacks before the three started down the road back toward Paige's car. The way back led them past the adoption pen again, and this time it was just the two women and the black-and-brown behemoth.

"What happened to Jelly and Hugo?" Paige asked.

One of the women looked up and said happily, "Adopted!" She turned away again to continue gathering squeaky toys and treats from the artificial grass.

"What about Bixby?" Ralph wondered sadly.

The second woman gave a sad smile, "He's going back to the shelter tonight."

"But they'll put him down!" The boy squeaked, then turned to pull on the sleeve of Walter's jacket, which was still keeping his mother warm. "Mom, what if we adopted him?"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath; she'd been expecting this moment since she first found out she was pregnant, because she'd been one of those kids. A mom-can-I-please-keep-him kid. She always wondered what she would do when her son turned those beautifully bright blue eyes on her, and she imagined she would say yes. That was when she'd imagined it would be a cat or a small dog or a gerbil, though – not 150 pounds of pure lion. "Ralph," she said softly, opening her eyes, "I'm so sorry, but there's barely room in our apartment for us, and a dog like that is a lot of work."

"But I'd take such good care of him," her son bargained. "I'd brush him and feed him and walk him. I'd walk him so many times a day it wouldn't matter that the apartment is small."

"Ralph," she started, but he cut her off.

"Please? He's old and he's good and he could be my friend."

She got down at eye level with him, "We just can't afford him in any way. The space, the upkeep, the cost of food and toys and vet visits. We have the car and the rent and bills, your school, the insurance. You understand, don't you?"

He nodded, slow and sad, "Yes, but…" He looked over his shoulder at the dog, eyes watering but shedding no tears. "I don't want him to die."

"I'm sorry, honey." Paige wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in for a tight hug, and they stayed like that for almost a full minute before she stood and gestured in the direction of the car. Ralph took her hand and Walter's, but looked back at the dog the entire way down the street. Walter couldn't help but do the same.

~~00~~

Paige dropped Ralph off at school without bring him by the garage first the next day, and when she entered Walter was the only one there, wandering around the room nervously. "What a night," she said by way of greeting after shoving the door open.

Walter looked up with wide eyes and immediately started toward her. "Paige, hey, can I talk to you about—"

"Do you know how crappy I felt? Oh my god," she threw her hands up, "you'd think I'd _kicked_ the dog, the way Ralph froze me out last night."

"Yeah, about that, listen—"

"And we talked this morning," she went on, "and he understands why we couldn't keep the dog, but he had this look, you know? And Ralph never gets that look. That mommy-just-broke-my-heart look. It broke _my_ heart." She pressed her palm tightly over her chest to get her point across.

Walter nodded impatiently, "I'm sure it was tough, but Paige—"

This time he was cut off by a loud thump coming from the loft, and then the seemingly slow-motion roll of a soccer ball dropping down the steps. They both stopped and watched each step it hit, following it with their eyes until it rolled to a stop at Paige's feet. "Um, what was that?" She asked, leaning down to pick up the ball, dropping it again when she realized it was sticky wet. "Blech, are you doing some weird experiment again?"

"In a way." Walter thought, then revised, "Actually, no, not really. I, um, wanted to talk to you about it, actually."

"About what?"

"And I want you to know," he explained, "that this was not me attempting to undermine you or buy affections or anything. It was very well thought out; I made charts and tables and a five-year plan and everything."

"Uh huh," the woman said suspiciously, "about what?"

It was his turn to ramble now, "It's just that there are so many benefits to it, you know? Social, mostly, which are the kind you like, and I thought we should take advantage of—"

"Walter!" She snapped, bring his attention back to her. "What are we talking about?"

"I adopted the dog," he said in a rush of breath, arms tensed and hands tightened together in front of him.

Her eyes widened and she looked up the loft steps in time to see a flash of black fur streaking past. "You bought the dog," she repeated, trying to wrap her mind around it.

"I read about the breed," he reasoned. "They're great with kids, fiercely loyal, but sweet and very intelligent. Limited health problems, with the exception of joint issues because of their size. They are pretty clean, too. I looked up the cost of food and vet visits and it's all well within my budget – I don't really have any important expenses, anyway. And the garage is the perfect size for him." He touched her arm for just a moment, directing her to the corner in front of Happy's trailer where the old cars had once been kept. "I can move the rocket back and put some turf in, so it's not all concrete and breezeblocks, and move the important stuff up off the floor so he can't get into it. Ralph's here basically every day, so he can help me take care of him and play with him and stuff. It would be his dog; I'd just…take care of it."

Paige stared speechless for a long time before swallowing and shaking his head. "That's too much work, Walter. Moving everything around, buying the turf and food and all that, and you're too busy for a dog; you have other stuff to do."

He shrugged and started bustling around again, moving things around on a shelf. "Moving stuff won't take that long, I already said the stuff is within my budget, and as far as time goes, I'll have help. Sylvester's afraid of dogs, but Happy and Cabe both love them, and Toby is fascinated with dog psychology – says they possess human emotions but in extremes. And Ralph will help. Besides, I've been thinking about having a dog again for a while."

Paige didn't say anything, and Walter started to get nervous. "If this was inappropriate or contradicting, I apologize. I would have discussed it with you first, but when I called the shelter after the parade yesterday, they said they were going to put him down today. I had to pick him up at six o'clock this morning." Still nothing. "Paige, please say something."

She didn't. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck and held him close, chest pressed tight against his and breath warm against his ear. He barely hesitated, as he once would have – he put his arms around her waist and returned the embrace, leaning the side of his head against hers. "This is going to mean so much to him, Walter," her voice was small and sweet in his ear, "and it means a lot to me. As much as I try, I can't give him everything; it means a lot to have someone who can give him the things I can't."

"Hey," he pushed her back gently and looked her in the eye, "you give him everything he _needs_. I have the easy job; I just help out with things he wants from time to time."

"Thank you," she repeated, and without thinking she leaned in and brushed a quick kiss against his cheek, a first that made them both freeze. They were still close, and now both painfully aware of how close, unsure of what to do or say, arms still around one another. They were granted a reprieve, however, when the front door opened and Happy struggled to pull one end of a giant, rolled green bundle through the door while Toby pushed the other in.

"We got the turf, boss," the mechanic called to him, panting under the weight of it. Sylvester followed them in single-file, then hurried to put his arms around the middle of the roll to help carry it. Cabe came a moment later, a ten pound bag of dog food slung over his shoulder and a plastic Pet Palace bag in each hand.

Walter and Paige had separated quickly, and now the woman was wiping a stray tear from beneath one eye. "You guys," she called out to them, "thank you so much for doing this."

"Don't thank us," Cabe said, letting the bag fall carefully to the floor beside the couch. "It was Walter that woke us all up at an ungodly hour to get this all put together."

When the liaison turned her eyes on the man, he shoved his hands in his pocket and shrugged, "I thought we could get it all set up before Ralph gets out of school today."

She smiled and clapped her hands together, "Then let's get started!"

~~00~~

Paige picked Ralph up at three that afternoon, keeping up the premise of guilty mother and stopped for ice cream on the way to the garage. "I know you're upset with me, Ralph," she said before they opened the door, "but Walter put together something really cool that might cheer you up, okay?"

"Okay," Ralph said, but his heart wasn't in it. Toby would have noted the way his eyes stayed downturned, his lips stayed in a straight line, and his shoulder slumped. Of course, Paige didn't need to be a Harvard-trained psychiatrist to notice these things – she was a mom. She saw them, and she was ready for the cat to be out of the bag so she could have her happy son back. She pushed open the door and called out, "We're here!"

Walter jogged through from the kitchen, which led to the section of the garage they'd set up for Bixby. "Hey, pal," he greeted, holding out his hand. "We put together something pretty cool today that you're going to love. Wanna see?"

"Sure," Ralph said weakly, handing his near-empty bowl of ice cream to his mother and then taking the man's hand, allowing himself to be led through the kitchen to where a brand new, large patch of green was waiting for him. Cabe, Toby, and Sylvester had all set up folding chairs on it and were sitting, watching with knowing smiles. The turf was littered with rawhide bones and plastic balls, stuffed squeakers and a food and water bowl.

Ralph's brow furrowed and he looked up at Walter, "I don't understand?"

"You don't?" Walter played dumb, looking around. "Hm, now that I think about it, something might be missing. What do you think, Toby?"

Toby touched his chin between his thumb and forefinger and nodded, "You know, I think there might be, but I can't think what it might be. Wow, that's frustrating." The doctor stood and put his hands on his hips, then whistled like he did something when he was at a loss – a loud, long whistle.

There was a sudden scratching sound, and the a few _thump-thump-thumps_ like feet coming down the loft steps. A moment later, the giant mastiff ran into the room and immediately sat at Toby's feet, looking up with an open, panting mouth and one paw raised. Toby laughed, "Took ten minutes for him to learn that; we've got another genius in the building."

Ralph stood in shock, trying to process this information, and then he began to bounce on the balls of his feet hopefully. "You adopted him?"

"I put both of our names on his papers," Walter confirmed, "_we_ adopted him. He's yours, bud."

"For real?" The boy looked over his shoulder at his mother, "Really, Mom?" She nodded, fresh tears in her eyes. "Thank you so much, Mom!"

"Don't thank me," she shook her head. "It was Walter's idea, and the team put it all together; I just told him it was okay."

Ralph looked at the Scorpion boss for confirmation, which he gave with a nod. Then the boy threw his arms around Walter and hugged him tightly, "Thank you, Walter. Thankyouthankyou."

"No problem, Ralph, but listen," he put a hand on Ralph's shoulder, "there are some rules, okay?" The boy listened attentively. "Bixby is going to be your responsibility. Now, I'll buy his stuff and take care of him when you're not here, but when you are here, you have to feed and water him, help walk him, and play with him."

"I will," Ralph promised.

"And Happy will not be building any devices that feed him on a timer," Walter went on, repeating the conditions he'd discussed with Paige and the team earlier in the day. "Toby isn't going to train him to do everything you want him to do, Cabe isn't going to play chase with him. He is your dog, and anything extra you want for or from him, you have to do yourself, okay? We'll help you, but it's kind of like when we rebuilt that Nintendo; do you remember what we did?"

Ralph thought back to a few weeks before, then said, "You showed me what to do, but I had to do the work myself. Except the soldering," he noted obediently, "because I'm not allowed to use that until Mommy says it's okay."

"Exactly right," Walter smiled. "Very good."

Ralph took a step back and shifted impatiently, "Can I go play with Bixby now? And then I can take him outside?"

"Of course."

Ralph ran to the turf then, throwing his arms around Bixby and allowing the dog to roll and pull him down with him, where they began to play tug-of-war with a long, thick braided rope while Toby and Happy put bets on who would win. As he watched them play, Walter was aware of Paige coming to stand beside him, and he didn't tense when she leaned her head against his shoulder and thanked him again and again.


	5. Being Scared

**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion. Also, I am not a genius. So don't check anything I make the team say in these stories, okay? I'm actually kind of dumb, and if you call me out on it I will be embarrassed and I will cry._

**Chapter Three: **"Being Scared"_ \- Ralph is scared, but he doesn't want to show it. (I feel like I got a bit OOC in this one, and I sincerely apologize if that is indeed the case.)_

~~00~~

Walter pushed the last of his equipment into a base while Ralph hurried around the garage gathering things for Bixby and Paige shoved some food into a backpack. He was trying hard to not think of this as a family holiday, but it really felt like one. He was taking the mother and son outside of city limits for the night to camp beyond the light pollution, and track the Leonid meteor shower that was due to pass over them tonight. Ralph had expressed disappointment that he wouldn't be able to see it in LA, and Walter had said the idea before thinking it through, not considering what an entire night out in tents with the two would be like.

It wasn't Ralph he was worried about, it was Paige. Over the past few weeks, things had been…strange between them. A lot more soft conversation, featherlight touches, wordless smiles over peoples' heads. He didn't quite know what was happening, and that made him feel awkward, like he was walking on ground that could give way beneath him at any moment. At work, there was almost always someone else around to distract him, or diffuse them, but out camping it would only be her, Ralph, and the fuzzy black bear of a dog they'd adopted together.

He cleared his throat and shook his head, trying to physically shake the thoughts away, then called to the boy, "I already got your telescope in the truck. Did you remember to bring the extra lenses so we can attach a camera?"

"I packed them the way you showed me," Ralph nodded, holding up a small metal box, "and I brought that cool one you got me for my birthday, that focuses the brightest object."

"Good job, buddy," Walter congratulated, looping his bag strap over his shoulder and picking up Bixby's leash. "Paige, are you ready?"

She came out of the kitchen, guiltily chewing on a slice of leftover pizza, and gave him a thumbs up. She took her son's free hand and they followed the man out to Happy's truck, which she'd reluctantly lent to them for the night. Walter put the rest of their bags in the bed, along with the tents and sleeping bags, and then coaxed Bixby to jump up before shutting the hatch. Then he helped Ralph into the backseat of the cab and held the door open for Paige, which she hadn't expected and he certainly hadn't intended to do, but nevertheless she thanked him and stepped up, noting how flushed he was when he circled around and climbed behind the wheel. He glanced at her, opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it and started the truck.

Paige started flicking through radio stations as soon as they pulled out onto the streets, finally settling on an alternative station and humming along while Walter weaved carefully through traffic, trying not to let his focus linger too long on the beautiful sound she was making. He'd snuck his old guitar – seven years since its last use – under the tents earlier, and wondered if he'd be brave enough to play it later, to ask her to sing. He memorized the songs on the radio that she seemed to like the most, breaking down their patterns and identifying each chord change, each strum, each body strike. He was sure he'd be able to recreate a few of them if he tried, but he hadn't decided if he wanted to try yet. It wasn't something he could calculate, and therefore it was hard to make any kind of decision.

He distracted himself by flicking a quick glance to the rearview mirror. "Have you ever been camping, Ralph?"

The boy shook his head and looked out the window, "Mom doesn't like being outdoors."

Walter looked at her, and she shrugged, "I like indoor plumbing."

"And she's scared of wolves," Ralph added. "There are a bunch of them around the city, you know."

"Scared of wolves," Walter repeated quietly, chuckling, then wincing when Paige gave him a hard poke in the side. "Ouch." She looked out the window innocently, like she hadn't done it, and Ralph giggled in the backseat. They fell back into a comfortable silence again after that, the only noise coming from the radio, and Ralph turning around occasionally to talk to Bixby through the cab window.

As Walter exited the freeway a while later and started down a poorly-paved road surrounded by dead grass and overgrown trees, he looked at Ralph again and noticed the boy was starting to tense. He'd very rarely spent a night away from home, except a handful of times at Drew's, Scorpion, and Billy's, and Walter knew it must be a little worrisome. "This is probably the first time Bixby's been outside of the city," he said, attempting to provide a distraction. "He's probably never been able to just run freely before; do you think he'll be excited?"

Ralph nodded, but it was absentminded. His eyes were locked on the passing trees, the rundown gas station/café combo, the large potholes in the road that jostled the truck every time Walter failed to swerve around one. "I'll bet he's nervous at first," Walter continued, trying to be smooth about it. "Different can be a little scary sometimes."

"Bixby won't be scared because I'm not scared." Of course Ralph saw what he was trying to do – he learned as much from Toby as he did from Walter or Sylvester or Happy. He knew the psychological tricks to talking, even if he couldn't always identify them; he knew when he was being "talked at."

Walter paused, remembering something he'd rather not, and then said softly, "Okay." Paige gave him a questioning look but he ignored it, pulling into the designated camping area at the park he'd planned to take them, and found a secluded spot by a line of trees, away from the noise of the drunk camping college students. He parked and hopped out of the car, this time letting Paige and Ralph find their own ways out, and circled around the drop the hatch and let Bixby down. He started grabbing the tents and bags, tossing them onto the ground where he would set them up, and shifting the cased equipment around carefully.

"Ralph, why don't you go run with Bixby for a while," Paige suggested, patting the dog, "just stay where we can see you." The boy nodded but only walked a few yards away, planting himself down on a big rock and watching as the dog raced around him, tongue hanging out and flying in his self-generated wind. When he was out of earshot, Paige approached Walter. "Are you okay? You got…weird."

"I am weird," he said with a humorless laugh, opening one of the two tent bags and taking out the rods. When he saw this wasn't a suitable answer, he swallowed and focused on the task at hand. "I just started thinking about something and it distracted me. Don't worry," he forced his best smile that he didn't believe she bought for a second, "I'm fine."

"Hm," was her only response, and she studied him a moment longer before moving to join her son and the dog, succeeding in getting Ralph up and running through the grass with her.

~~00~~

"_Da, I'm scared," a young Walter admitted to his father from inside the hand-sewn tent they'd set up in the middle of the woods behind their farmhouse. "I want to go home to mum and Megan."_

"_This is normal, Walter," his father replied gruffly, loading ammo into his shotgun. "This is what lads are supposed to learn. Not that computer business you're always fussin' on about. Come out here with me now," he held open the tent flap._

_The curly-haired boy shook his head fervently, "No, da. It's dark and cold and…and I don't want to shoot anything!"_

_That's when the man seized him by his collar, the roughest his father had ever been and ever would be again with him. Physically, anyway. He pulled the boy out into the darkness and pressed the gun into his hands. "Men don't get scared, Walter," he told him, "and they don't run away from their fear like wee whinin' babes. It's time for you to be a man. Now pick up that blaster and shoot, or we're both goin' hungry tonight._

~~00~~

Walter shook his head and staked the last loop of the second tent into the ground, giving it a tug to make sure it was securely in place. He didn't like remembering his father that way, but there weren't many other ways to remember him. Yes, he was a good man – he'd worked, taken care of his family, did the best he could to care for Megan, and in the beginning he'd truly tried to understand Walter. But when he couldn't, he'd shut down, blocked his son out, and focused all his attention on the child he stood a chance with.

The genius took in a deep breath and started tossing the sleeping bags into their appropriate tents – two into the one he'd set up for Paige and Ralph, and one in the one he would sleep in alone – and then started digging a shallow pit where they could put their fire when it got cooler. Despite his father trying to teach him to camp on multiple occasions when he was young, all of Walter's camping skill had come from Cabe, who'd taken him out almost every time he came to visit. Cabe never made him catch his own dinner, never made him wander around alone in the dark – he'd always been right there, guiding him, teaching him gently, the way Walter tried to teach Ralph things.

"You got them up quick," Paige noted as she and Ralph came back to the camping area, both winded and sweating a little. She reached into one of the packs for a bottle of water and took a big swig, then handed it to her son. She took a separate bottle and placed Bixby's bowl on the ground, filling it halfway so the dog could get a much-needed drink as well. "Do you camp a lot?"

"Not since I was sixteen," he told her, arranging some twigs in the hole, "but I used to go fairly regularly." He stood and brushed off his hands before letting them rest on his hips, squinting into the setting sun, "Ralph, what do you say we get the telescopes set up before we lose the light?"

The boy nodded but still seemed distracted as he helped Walter unloaded the cases and take the equipment out. They set up his telescope and Walter's, then connected the bright scope to one and a camera scope to the other, finishing in forty-five minutes with some daylight left to spare. Paige let them snack on trail mix and jerky while they sat around, talking about what to expect from the sky tonight, and what it might look like. Ralph stayed mostly silent, the way he'd been before he came to know the Scorpion team. Paige kept him close, running her hand over his hair and asking him if he was okay a couple of times, to which he always nodded but scooted just a little closer to her. He was scared, but he wouldn't admit it.

When it got a little darker, Walter took a couple sheets of blank paper out of his bag and crinkled them, wrapping them around a larger stick which he then wedged at the bottom of his fire pit, under the other twigs. He wrestled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the paper, watching as it spread to the stick and then to the others, making a modest but warm fire for them to crowd around. They boiled water over it and ate instant mac-and-cheese while Bixby munched noisily on his kibble, breaking only to take the few noodles Walter snuck to him when the others weren't looking. He secretly spoiled the dog, often sharing late night pastries with him and giving him extended belly rubs while he was reading old research papers.

"The shower won't be visible until 10:03," Walter said around eight o'clock, "if you guys wanted to get some shut-eye now. You could probably stay awake for more of it if you do."

Paige looked down at her son, "What do you think, sweetie?"

"No," he said in a small voice, "I can stay up."

"You sure?"

"Yes." He stirred his mac-and-cheese around and scooped it out with a piece of beef jerky, chewing on it with his eyes on the fire. Every so often, whenever the wind blew or a twig snapped, Walter would notice Ralph's eyes flitting to the tree line, the open field, all around. He tried to think of some out he could offer, a way for the boy to say he wanted to leave without actually having to say it, but nothing came to mind. Besides that, he knew Ralph wanted to see this shower, otherwise he would have taken him home at the first sign of fear. He wasn't his father – he would never make Ralph do something he didn't want to do.

He didn't know what to do or say, so he tapped his fingers against his knee a few times and then, on a whim, said, "Hydrogen."

"Helium," Ralph instantly responded.

Walter smirked, "Lithium."

"Berylium."

"Boron."

"Carbon." This went on for 103 more elements before Walter had the last word on "meitnerium," and both geniuses stopped and smiled at each other. For Normals, memorizing the periodic table was probably a big deal, difficult and easily forgotten, but for people like Walter and Ralph it was child's play. Something you looked at once and remembered forever, reciting it over and over when you needed to relax.

Silence fell and Walter could see, over the fire, that the boy was tensing again, the distraction having worn off. Quickly, he started on a new one. "No higher than one thousand, okay? Zero, one, one, two…"

"Three, five, eight, thirteen," Ralph continued.

"Twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five."

It went back and forth like this for hours. Periodic table, Fibonacci numbers, pi to the hundredth digit, and then when Paige got tired of being excluded they moved on to a game where Walter would say a state, Paige would name its capitol, and Ralph would provide the population of the state, capitol, and biggest city. After that Ralph would name a year, Walter would say a movie released that year, and Paige would name the two lead actors. Then Paige just started listing letters from the alphabet and Walter and Ralph shouted out things that started with that letter, then explained them in great detail.

At ten o'clock, the alarm on Walter's watch started beeping and he pinched it off. "Few more minutes," he said, adding a couple of twigs to the fire and then moving to where he'd set up the telescopes. He spent a few minutes adjusting them, making sure they were pointed at the Leo constellation, and then he waved excitedly toward Ralph. "Look up!" The boy started moving toward the telescope but Walter held out a hand to stop him. "With your naked eye first."

"Why?" Ralph wondered, but looked up nonetheless.

"When I was younger, Cabe told me that things are worth more than their science," Walter said, fiddling with the lens on Ralph's telescope. "He made me promise that I'd always look at things from far away first before I tried to figure out what made them what they are, and now," he straightened up and smiled at Walter, "I want you to promise me the same thing."

Ralph didn't look at him – his eyes were glued to the streaks in the sky. "I promise."

Paige was also looking up, and she was beaming. She was sure Walter was telling the truth about the promise he made to Cabe, and she was almost as sure that he'd made Ralph make the same promise for her benefit. _You don't just want to raise him with facts and figures_, what he'd told her a few weeks before repeated in her mind now, _but connection and sentiment. I appreciate that, I respect it, and I would like to contribute in any way I can_. Walter himself probably wanted Ralph to look at science first, but the Walter that respected Paige as a mother wanted Ralph to look at the beauty of things.

After a few minutes, Walter asked, "Do you want to look up close now?"

"Not yet," Ralph said, leaning back so his head was rested against Bixby's belly. The dog was hardly bothered, simply glancing at the boy before lying his head back down to sleep. Paige smiled and leaned back as well, using her arms as a pillow. Walter watched them both and wondered why they'd even bothered coming all the way out here if they weren't going to use the telescopes, but the answer hit him before he could vocalize the question. They came out here for this. Lying back under the stars, watching the meteors flit past. He gave a sigh of resignation, set his laptop to record from the camera lens, and leaned back on his elbows to look up at the sky.

~~00~~

"Walter." The loud whisper jerked the genius from his slumber and he jackknifed into a sitting position, barely missing a literal head-on collision with Paige. They'd stayed out staring at the stars until midnight and then they'd all gone to their respective tents to sleep, with Bixby keeping watch by the pit that had once held the fire. Walter hadn't heard his tent unzip, which was strange because he was usually a very alert sleeper, and he was startled by Paige's sudden appearance in such close proximity. He was glad the darkness hid the flame in his cheeks, because his first guesses were not of an innocent nature and he was ashamed that the thought even crossed his mind.

He laid back down and reached for his watch, lighting up the display to check the time. 1:57. "What's wrong?" He grunted, rubbing his hands over his eyes.

"Ralph won't sleep," she said, wringing her hands together. "He says nothing's wrong, but he's not really talking and he won't go to sleep."

It was silent and for a moment Paige thought he might have gone back to sleep, but then he let out a sleepy sigh and sat back up. "All right," he nodded, yawning and straightening his University of Sussex t-shirt, "I'll see if I can find out what's up."

"Thank you," she said, "and I'm sorry. I know I'm always running to you with stuff I should be able to figure out, but—"

"I don't mind," Walter cut her off, slipping his tennis shoes on without socks and crawling out of the tent. He stood and stretched his back, then made his way to Paige's tent, where Bixby looked up to make sure he wasn't a stranger before going back to sleep. "Ralph," the man whispered as he got on his hands and knees to enter the tarp shelter.

The boy was lying down but his eyes were wide opened, fixed to the mesh window, "Hi, Walter."

Walter sat down with his legs stretched out in front of him, "Why aren't you asleep?" Ralph didn't respond, and Walter counted to ten is head before speaking again, so the boy didn't feel like he was being accused anything. "Ralph, you can say if you're scared. You know that, right?"

"I'm not scared," the boy said, but the way he gripped his sleeping bag gave him away.

"Mm," the older man mused. "And what does scare you?"

Ralph shook his head, "Nothing. I'm too smart to get scared."

"You're never too smart to get scared."

There was a pause. "You don't get scared."

There it was. It was what Walter was afraid of, one of his less attractive qualities rubbing off on the young man he was mentoring. He didn't want Ralph to not be afraid of everything; being fearless could make you careless, callous, guarded. He couldn't let him turn out that way.

~~00~~

"_You just tell me how you hacked into NASA," Cabe told the eleven-year-old Walter, "and I promise everything will be okay." Then they drove through the guard gate of Mountjoy Prison, where two armed officers came out and ushered him inside, settling him into an oversized jumpsuit and handing him two scratchy wool blankets._

"_What are we doing here?" The boy asked, turning his wide brown eyes up to the American agent._

_Cabe clasped his hands in front of his body. "Criminals go to prison, Walter. If you don't cooperate, you're going to be here for a very long time. Now," he leaned forward, "are you going to tell me how you did it?"_

_On the inside, Walter was trembling hard enough to shake the building, but he turned his chin up and narrowed his eyes. He tightened his hands to keep them from shaking and set his mouth in a thin, hard line. He wouldn't show this man that he was afraid. He'd never let Cabe break him. "Oh," the agent said with raised eyebrows, "you're not scared?"_

_Slowly, very slowly, Walter shook his head. "I'm not afraid of you," he said in an equally paced voice. "I'm not afraid of anything."_

~~00~~

"Buddy." Walter sighed and scooted a bit closer and Ralph sat up, leaning his head against Walter's chest when he put his arm over his shoulders. "I know it seems like I don't ever get scared, but believe me when I say that I do."

"No, you don't," Ralph objected softly. "You're too smart."

The man rubbed his curls with his free hand and said, "Being smart doesn't mean you don't get scared, it just means you're better at hiding it." Sensing that the boy didn't quite understand or believe him, he bit his lip and asked, "I told you how I met Cabe, right?"

"He arrested you," Ralph recalled. "You hacked into NASA. Which was very bad."

"Yeah," Walter chuckled, "very bad. But when Cabe arrested me, he took me to a prison and left me there for three days. A real prison, full of real criminals, with real guards who carried real guns. When he dropped me off," he let out a deep breath, reliving the memory in his head, "he asked me if I was scared. I told him I wasn't. But do you know what?"

"What?"

"I lied." He tugged at his t-shirt, fidgeting at the recollection. "I pretended to be brave and they believed me. Cabe, the guards, my parents – everyone thought I was fearless. After that, nobody ever really asked me if I was okay, because they assumed that nothing could touch me. I let them think that," he sighed again, "and when I was hurting, I was hurting alone. And I don't ever want you to be alone."

There were several moments of silence following the confession, the only noise being the crunch of Paige's slippers outside and the chirping of crickets in the woods. "Walter?" Ralph said after a while.

"Yeah, bud?"

"I'm scared." He turned so his face was buried in the man's shirt, "I don't want to get eaten by a wolf."

Walter smirked but didn't laugh, because he didn't want the boy to feel bad. "That wolf would have to go through Bixby, me, and your mom first. And between you and me, if it came down to your mom and a wolf, I'd rather take my chances with the wolf."

"You're not funny," Paige called from outside the tent, and Walter tensed. How long had she been listening? Had she heard everything? Of course she had. Paige was always there to witness his most humiliating moments – his most human.

He licked his lips nervously and glanced down at Ralph, "Do you think you can try to get some sleep now?"

"Yes."

"Paige," Walter called to the woman, and she immediately pushed back the tent flap and crawled inside, lying down beside her son. Walter moved to leave but Ralph tightened his grasp on the man's shirt, holding him in place.

"Can you stay?" He asked, sounding younger than Walter had ever heard him sound. "We can all keep each other safe from the wolves," and then he giggled quietly.

Walter looked over Ralph's head to Paige, who was slipping down into her sleeping bag. She gave him a nod and Walter said, "Sure, buddy, I can stay." Then they both slipped down so they were vertical and the man watched as the boy's eyes slipped shut, and a few minutes later his breathing evened out and he was asleep.

Walter was lying on his side with his head on his bicep, arm stretched out so his hand was just above Ralph's head. A few minutes after the boy had fallen asleep, Walter felt five slender fingers wrapping around his own and he picked his head up just an inch to look at Paige, who was lying in the same position and holding on to him with tears in her eyes. _Thank you_, she mouthed before her eyes slipped shut. Soon after, Bixby joined them in the tent, stretching his large form across six feet and snoring, but that wasn't what kept Walter awake for the rest of the night. It was the fact that Paige still had his hand in hers. Or he still had hers in his. It was hard to tell anymore. All he knew is that they were holding on to each other, and he didn't want to pull away.

~~00~~

"_Hm hm_," Paige woke the next morning to a soft, lovely noise coming from outside the tent. Ralph was still fast asleep beside her and Bixby's big butt what crushing her chest, but Walter was gone from the tent. _He must have gotten up early and turned on the radio_, she thought when she heard a sweetly strummed melody drifting through the air. She listened for a moment before identifying the song, but the words she knew didn't come. Just an accompanying humming and the rusting of leaves.

"What is that?" She wondered, pushing Bixby off of her and easing herself out of the tent so as not to wake her son, who was immediately claimed by the dog as a pillow when she left. She stood from the tent, her back and knees popping, and froze when she saw Walter.

His back was to her and a small fire was boiling water before him, but that wasn't the shocker. The big surprise was the cloth guitar case at his feet, the carved instrument slung over his shoulder, the way his body moved with each delicate strum. "Walter," she croaked, and then turned bright red, praying he would chalk her tone up to sleep and nothing else.

He stopped playing and looked over his shoulder at her, embarrassed but trying to play it off as casual. "Did I wake you up?"

"Yes, but I don't mind." She moved to sit next to him on the big stone, studying the guitar in his hands. "I didn't know you were a musician."

"Oh," he looked down, then back up, "I'm not. Well, what I mean to say is…I'm not," he repeated lamely. "I can play music I hear – it's mechanical – but I can't write my own. My brain doesn't really think in music."

"Still," she said, not to be deterred, "it's surprising that you even play. Let me guess: Megan?"

He bit his lip and smiled, "When she got sick, she asked me to learn so I could play her favorite songs for her. Mum and Da…Mom and Dad tried to convince me to join my college band for the longest time."

"Why didn't you?" Paige wondered as he started absentmindedly strumming again.

Walter shrugged, "They had to do all these performances around the county, in front of big groups of people." He paused and then offered her a tiny smirk, "I suppose you could say I was afraid."


	6. Slumber Party

"Look at me, look at me," Walter fussed, on his knees in front of a seated Paige, holding her head between his hands and using his thumbs to widen her eyes, checking for pupil dilation. "Are you at all nauseated? Any light sensitivity?"

"No," the liaison shook her head, "I barely missed the edge of the pool when he pushed me in. Hit my elbow, but that's it."

Walter picked up the jacket he'd discarded before diving in after her – it was a little damp, but it would do the trick – and draped it over her shoulders while Cabe cuffed their suspect to the rail of a diving board. Then he turned the woman's arm so he could examine her arm, where a deep cut ran from the middle of her forearm to her elbow. He yanked off his favorite black tie and wrapped it around the wound as tightly as he could, apologizing when she hissed in pain, and then apologizing for an entirely different reason.

"I'm so sorry I left you alone with him," he said sincerely, tying a careful knot and letting his fingers linger on her arm. "I didn't even suspect that it might have been him. I should have known."

Paige was already shaking her head, "None of us did. Even Toby thought Barnes was just a patsy; he fooled us all. And he didn't hurt me."

"He pulled a gun on you and pushed you into a pool," Walter frowned. "You're probably going to need stitches."

"Okay, yes, but it could have been a lot worse."

"I shouldn't have left," Walter said again, then cleared his throat and stood, running a hand through his wet hair and looked away.

Cabe started toward them before Paige could say anything reassuring, straightening his trademark sunglasses and securing his gun in its holster. "Paige, you okay?"

She bit the inside of her cheek and then looked up at the agent, "Walter says I need stitches."

"We'll hit the hospital before going back to Homeland," he said, holding out a hand to help her to her feet.

"Homeland?" She asked, allowing herself to be dragged up and then staring at the pool, wondering where her left shoe had gone.

Cabe nodded regretfully, "I'm sorry, kid, but you were alone with a wanted fugitive for two hours. The big bosses are going to want to know everything – every word he said, every move he made, every time he scratched his head."

"I'm pretty sure the Police wrote a song like that," Paige joked weakly, then shook her head. "How long is it going to take?"

"Depends on when we get out of the hospital. Few hours, maybe?"

Walter turned around to face them again, "Can't Homeland wait until tomorrow?"

"Sorry, no."

Paige sighed and pulled Walter's jacket around her shoulders more tightly, shivering inside of it. "Okay, but somebody has to pick Ralph up from school and let him know what's going on."

"I'll take care of it," Walter said without hesitation. "It's the least I can do."

She nodded, "I'll call the school and let them know."

~~00~~

Walter tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and laughed when Ralph strummed an invisible guitar in the passenger seat, keeping in time with the music crackling through the busted-up stereo speakers. He'd been having good days at school lately, now that he had a few good friends and his teachers were starting to understand him a little better, and he was often very excitable when he got out at the end of the day – hyper, even. One of his favorite things to do, that he'd picked up from Evan and Billy, was to play Air Band.

"You know, I could teach you to play real guitar," Walter offered, rolling his window down a little more to air-dry from the breeze. "If you wanted."

The boy stilled and grinned at him, "That would be really cool."

"Great," Walter reached over and ruffled Ralph's hair, "we'll work it into your weekly agenda later." He turned into the backstreet that led to the garage and parked just in front of the door, grabbing Ralph's bag from the backseat and leading the boy inside. "For now," he said as he deposited the bag on the couch, "I'm going to change into dry clothes and then I'll make us a snack. Think about what you want while I'm changing. Bixby!"

The dog came running down the stairs and Walter traded him places, jogging up to the loft while Ralph became immediately distracted by a game of fetch. Walter went to his bedroom area and made quick work stripping off his damp clothes, toweling himself off before putting on a pair of jeans and a blue button-up. Then he took a moment and stared at himself in the mirror over his dresser, guilt washing over him again. He couldn't shake the memory – asking Paige to stay with Alan Barnes, a seemingly innocent pawn in a weapons smuggling ring, while he and Cabe went to intercept a new shipment at the docks. They got the call two hours later, when she'd managed to lock herself in the bathroom with Barnes's phone, and frantically whispered that he was the ringleader, not the fall-guy. They'd rushed back as Barnes was running, trying to take the woman as a hostage but she wasn't cooperating. She'd thrown a sharp right hook to his nose, which resulted in him shoving her into the motel pool before Cabe had tackled him to the ground and Walter dove in to pull Paige out. It was his fault. There were dozens of other agents that could accompany Cabe on this missions; it didn't have to be him. His responsibility was to his team, and he couldn't overlook that anymore.

"Walter!" He was drawn back to reality by the young boy calling up the steps, "May I have a soda, please?"

He slipped on a pair of socks but forewent shoes and started down to the main level. "Yeah, you can have one," he said when he reached the landing, fixing a smile back onto his face. "Did you figure out what you might want to eat?"

"Happy made peanut butter banana sandwiches yesterday," Ralph said as they walked to the kitchen together, and he pulled open the refrigerator to grab two cans of cream soda. "They were really good."

"Did she fry them?" Walter asked as he lined the ingredients up on the counter, then took the can the boy offered him and popped the top.

Ralph nodded, "Yes, and she said to use a little bit of salted butter in the pan because the salt goes well with the sweet." Walter followed the instructions, letting the pan warm with a pat of butter in it, and handed the boy a butter knife to spread the peanut butter and slice the bananas. Five minutes later they were sat next to each other on the couch, inhaling the thick triangles of salty-sweet goodness and watching a Birth Of Technology special on the science channel. Walter pinched off a few pieces of his sandwich when Ralph wasn't looking and snuck them into Bixby's mouth, and the irony of the adult/child role reversal was not lost on him.

When they finished eating, Ralph pulled his homework into his lap and Walter watched as his pencil danced quickly across the page, barely stopping to think about the answers. He wondered if the boy would ever need to ask him to help with his homework. He and the team showed him new things, advanced things that most college graduates would never even know existed, but his regular school homework was painfully easy for the boy. And while Walter celebrated Ralph's intelligence and self-sufficiency, he also felt a little bit of disappointment that he'd never have to explain something as simple as the multiplication table, or tricks to memorizing all of the states.

After Ralph finished with his homework, he asked if they could work on the rocket and Walter obliged, showing him the modified fuel cover and asking him to help calculate the pressure needed within the chamber to improve flow. They tinkered until their fingertips were sore and torn, and they were both covered in a thin layer of dust and mechanical grease. Happy had come home during this activity, but stated she was tired and declined to join, though she did bring her best tools (the ones Toby had given her for Christmas) out of her trailer for them to use with the promise that they clean them and put them all back where they were supposed to go when they finished. Walter appreciated this gesture. Not the tools, but that she'd refused to join them. Happy knew how much he liked working on this project with Ralph, and vise versa; she was letting them have fun together, no interruptions.

Around seven o'clock, Walter's phone started ringing and he meant to ignore it, but he glanced at the display readout and it said it was Paige, so he quickly wiped his hands on his jeans and answered. "Hey, how are you?" He asked by way of greeting. "How's your arm?"

"Seven stitches, like you said," she told him. "But they put some numbing stuff on it so it doesn't hurt. How's Ralph?"

"He's great. Do you want to talk about him?" Realizing he was being talked about, the boy stopped working and turned expectantly.

"In a minute. I have to talk to you first."

"Sure." Walter covered the speaker with his hand and said to Ralph, "Buddy, do you want to go look through the take-out drawer and pick something for dinner? I'm going to talk to your mom real quick and then you can talk to her." Ralph nodded and hopped toward the kitchen, and Walter put the phone back to his ear, "What's up?"

She sighed noisily into his ear, "Homeland seems to think I'm not giving them every possible detail. We just now got done with the preliminary interviews, and they're calling in the 'big guys' now." He could practically hear the eye-roll in her voice, "We're going to be here forever. I'm going to call Cynthia and have her pick Ralph up for the night; I just wanted to let you know."

His brow furrowed in confusion, "You don't have to do that. Ralph can stay here."

"Walter," she chuckled in his ear, "you don't want to have to worry about a kid for an entire night. You've got stuff to do."

He felt himself prickle at this. "I don't know why you always assume that I'm too busy for Ralph. I've told you over and over that I'm not."

There was a long pause as Paige seemed to consider these words, and when she spoke again her voice was apologetic. "You're right. I wasn't thinking. I just didn't want to put you out; you already did me a big favor by picking him up from school and keeping him occupied."

"I'm not keeping him _occupied_," Walter told her shortly, "I'm hanging out with him. We did homework and worked on the rocket, and now we're about to have dinner."

"Are you sure you don't want me to call Cynthia?" Paige asked, to be sure.

It was Walter's turn to roll his eyes, "I'm positive."

"Okay. Thank you. Can I talk to Ralph now?"

"Yes," Walter said, still irritated with the woman but trying not to show it to her son, who was walking back toward him with a worn yellow pamphlet in his hands. Afterglow Bistro. "Your mom wants to talk to you, pal; I'll order food while you talk to her. You want the club sandwich?"

"Yes, please," Ralph said sweetly, trading the man pamphlet for phone. "With no—"

"No mayonnaise," Walter filled in, ruffling the boy's hair before going to pick up one of the office phones. He watched Ralph as he ordered their food, as well as something for Happy; the way he nodded excitedly when his mother asked him if he was okay staying at the garage for the night, bounced lightly on his feet, and started chattering on about the rocket they were working on. Both geniuses rang off at the same time, meeting up in the middle of the room and looking each other older – they were both a mess.

Walter touched his hand to his chin. "I think there are still some of your pajamas here from when you, your mom, and Drew stayed the night a couple months ago."

"The ones with frogs on them?"

"Those are the ones," the man nodded. "They're in the linen closet. Why don't you go upstairs and take a shower and change, and hopefully the food will be here by the time you're done."

"Okay." Ralph took the stairs two at a time, Bixby hot on his heels, and after a few minutes Walter heard the water running in the upstairs bathroom. He sat down on the couch and sighed, regretting being cross with Paige but also still upset that she regarded him as such a bystander in Ralph's life, after all this time. He never had to make time for the boy, because he was always his priority – he _made time_ for everything else in his life. How could she not see that? Why didn't she feel like it was okay to lean on him by now? Still, he knew she didn't mean anything by it; he had no right to snap at her the way he did.

After a little deliberation, he dialed her back on his cell phone and she answered on the first ring. "Walter?"

"Hey," he said into the receiver.

"Hi," she said slowly, not knowing why he called when they'd just spoken. "I can't talk long; the second round of interviews are about to start."

"I just, um," he began fiddling with his key ring, which he'd left on the coffee table before, "want to say that, uh…" He chewed on his bottom lip and then located the front door key, and instead of apologizing he said, "I wanted to let you know that I'm putting a key under the planter outside."

Whatever she'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "What?"

"Well, it's just, I know you don't like spending nights away from Ralph." This was true. Walter had personally spent two or three nights talking to the woman on the phone until the early hours because she couldn't sleep when her son spent the night at Drew's place. "I don't mind him staying here all night, but if you get home and you're having a hard time sleeping, you can come get him. Or…stay…here for the night." His cheeks flamed at the words he hadn't intended to say, and he rushed on, "Just wake me up if you do and I'll move to the couch. You know."

Paige's voice was tight, but not in an angry way – she was trying not to laugh. "Okay, Walter. Thank you very much." Then she hung up, but Walter continued to blush and stammer to himself while he wriggled his key off of the ring and went to place it under the ceramic planter. He went back inside and sat down in front of his computer, pulling up some encryptions to pass the time while he waited for the food and for Ralph. The boy had spectacular timing, because he reappeared at the landing of the garage right as there was a loud thumping at the door, and Walter got his wallet and went to answer.

"Will you go get Happy?" Walter asked over his shoulder as he turned the doorknob, and Ralph wordlessly went off to do so. The man paid for the food and brought it to the dining table, taking it out of the plastic bags and opening the cardboard containers, slipping a piece of tomato to the mastiff that sniffed around at his ankles. When Ralph returned with Happy, the three of them (four, if you counted Bixby, which they did) sat down and started eating, talking mostly about Ralph's day at school, and the new friends he'd started accumulating. There was one girl, Sloan, that made the boy turn a spectacular shade of pink whenever she came up in conversation, and Happy looked on knowingly while Walter was left in the dark. Later, the mechanic would explain that this was the girl Ralph had a crush on, and had given a special valentine to, and Walter would be confused by the sudden fluttering feeling in his chest out of excitement for the boy's first love. When he finished first, Walter left them to take a quick shower and change into sweatpants and a t-shirt, and made it back down in time to see Bixby licking the leftover ranch dressing out of one of the containers.

They made makeshift s'mores for dessert, melting leftover Peeps from Easter over Happy's welding torch and sandwiching them between vanilla wafers and mini chocolate bars. Then Happy left to have drinks with Toby at his favorite bar and Walter and Ralph sat down on the couch to watch reruns of Nova, with the boy leaning his head against the man's chest petting Bixby's head when it appeared on his lap.

"Walter," Ralph said as it got later, "am I sleeping on the couch?"

Walter shook his head and yawned, getting tired himself, "No, buddy, there's an extra bed upstairs."

"I didn't see one last time I was there."

"It's usually buried under my research," the man told him, running a hand through Ralph's hair. "I cleared it off after my shower, though. It's where Toby sleeps when he—" is hiding out from bookies, "—needs a place to stay for the night. It's pretty small, but if he can fit on it, I think you'll be fine."

"Bixby too?" Ralph wondered, scratching the dog's ears.

"If you squeeze in real tight," Walter laughed, then yawned again and reached for the remote. "How about we turn in?"

Ralph agreed and followed him up to the loft, where he did indeed find a twin size bed shoved into one corner of the living area, two tall piles of files and thick books beside it. Walter quickly outfitted it with a fitted sheet and a heavy quilt from his linen closet, giving up one of his plush pillows and tucking the boy in, smirking when Bixby jumped up and tried to make space for himself, but just ended up lying completely on the bottom half of his master. "Walter," Ralph said when the man started to head to his own bed, "I'm a little scared."

"Scared?" Walter came back and sat on the edge of the small bed. "Why's that?"

"I've never spent the night here before without my mom. What if I can't sleep, or I have a bad dream?"

"If either of those things happen, you just come wake me up," the man said simply. "I won't be upset or impatient or anything; I want you to be comfortable here, so don't hesitate to come get me." Ralph seemed somewhat settled by this, but there was still doubt in his eyes. "How about a story?" Walter suggested, and the boy nodded a small nod and scooted as close to the wall as he could.

The man chose a book from the shelf – one they'd started together a few weeks before – and swung leg up so he was sitting beside the boy, who was quick to turn into him and put one arm across his chest. "_But how had I left the course of the stream?_" Walter read aloud, "_For it was a terrible fact that it no longer ran at my side. Then I understood the reason of that fearful silence, when for the last time I listened to hear if any sound from my companions could reach my ears._" Twelve pages later, Ralph's breathing had evened out against his chest and Walter slowly, softly, extracted himself from beneath the child, pressed a kiss to his forehead, patted Bixby's ears, and then went to his own bed. He fell asleep quicker than he had in years.

~~00~~

Walter was vaguely aware of a door opening in the distance, and then the sound of sandals slapping against tile, but what really woke him was Bixby jumping down from Ralph's side and pattering over to the archway that led to the loft. He squinted to see a figure in the darkness, and when the figure lit up a cell phone screen for a little direction, he found Paige's features in it. She was walking carefully, so as not to bump into anything or make too much noise, and she made her way over to where her son slept. Walter watched as she crouched and ran her fingers through his hair, then over his back, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. She stayed there for a moment, studying him with a small smile on her face, like she was deep in thought. After a while, she straightened up and turned toward where Walter slept. He shut his eyes quickly, though he wasn't sure why; there was nothing embarrassing about waking up when someone entered your home. Nevertheless, he kept them closed as she walked over to him.

"Walter?" She whispered, barely audible, "Are you awake?"

He said nothing, still confused by his actions but figuring it was too late to turn back now. There were several moments of stillness and he almost opened his eyes just to see if she was still standing there, but he waited it out. Finally, he felt the bed sink under additional weight and he tensed; Paige had lowered herself down next to him. He heard her purse fall to the floor, followed by her purse and jacket. When he'd told her she could stay the night, he'd intended to move to the couch and let her have the bed, not to share it with her. He couldn't say this was a totally unwelcome surprise, though.

"Go get Ralph," he heard her whisper to Bixby as she reclined in the bed, "go on." Then his blanket shifted over a fraction as she slipped in beside him, and there was another moment of stillness before she crept a little closer. Feigning sleep, he rolled to face her and made a smacking noise with his mouth that he'd seen sleeping people in movies do countless times. He just wanted to know what she'd do.

He felt her fingers play over the curls that fell across his forehead, twirling them and pushing them back on his head. "I'm sorry I didn't give you more credit with Ralph," she whispered words he wasn't sure he was actually meant to hear. "I know you love him. Thank you for that." Then her fingers left his hair and traveled down to wrap around his hand, and she leaned her head forward until it was nestled just beneath his chin. Walter tried his best to keep his breath normal, but he worried she would hear the heavy pounding of his heart and it would give him away.

After a while, when he determined it was safe, Walter removed his hand from hers and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her even closer to him. She made a happy noise in her sleep and nuzzled her head into his neck, and he wondered for a very long time if it would be possible to freeze this moment forever, so he never had to move again.

~~00~~

When Walter woke the next morning he was flat on his back and there was a pressure on his chest. He blinked open his bleary eyes and looked down at the head of soft, light brown hair that rested there. Paige was practically on top of him, chest pressed to his, and both of his arms were secured around her, one hand buried deep in her long locks. He was confused for a moment, until the events of late last night (or early that morning) came rushing back, and he smiled sleepily. He kissed the top of her head, so light it couldn't be detected, and closed his eyes once more. Downstairs, he could hear Sylvester and Happy talking and moving things around, while Toby yelled at the horse races on the radio, and he knew he should get up and bring order to the business. He would, eventually, but for now he wasn't quite ready to move. For now, he was happy right where he was.


	7. Beauty In All Things

**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion._

**Chapter Two:**"Beauty In All Things"_ \- Walter and the team attempt to help Ralph with a school art project. (This one...I dunno. It's short and I wrote it quickly - I might end up rewriting it. Just let me know what you guys think!)_

~~00~~

When Walter had lamented the fact that Ralph didn't need him to help with homework, he'd had in mind math and science, maybe history, a little writing, but never this. This, he wasn't prepared for.

"'Select a medium,'" he read from the handout Ralph had given him, while Paige stood in front of them, "'and create and present a work of art, detailing what medium you used and why, and why you chose to create the art you did. This can include drawing, painting, clay sculpting, music, photography, creative writing, or craft projects.'"

"No welding?" Happy piped from her work station, though her eyes never left the gadget she was fiddling with. "Bogus."

Ralph, who was sitting next to his favorite genius on the couch, frowned and put his chin in his hand. "I don't know what to do for the project; I'm left-brained."

Walter thought for a moment, and then the obvious solution hit him, "Your mom and I could help you learn a song. I could teach you the chords on guitar and she could teach you to si—" Ralph was already shaking his head, and he pointed to a line further down on the print-out. "'Projects must be original work,'" the man read, and rolled his eyes. "You're in the fifth grade; what original masterpiece do they expect you to come up with?"

"You could draw a picture," Paige suggested.

"I can't draw," Ralph said sadly, "or paint, or sculpt. I lack creative motor function."

"Oh, honey, don't say th—"

"No, it's a common problem among geniuses," Walter cut her off with a light chuckle. "It's not a matter of being confident or practicing – his mind simply does not translate images from his head to his hands. Numbers, letters, patterns, yes. But pictures and sounds, no. It's why I can't write my own music on the guitar." Walter stopped suddenly, eyes staring out at an invisible equation in the distance, and he stayed very still for a very long time.

Paige opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but Sylvester had rushed over and put a hand out to stop her, grinning and giving her the "O.K." gesture with his fingers. They waited for three minutes and twenty-seven seconds (Paige counted), before Walter finally jumped up and ran over to the file cabinet, pulling out the top drawer, which was reserved for cases they'd worked with Homeland. "The painting case," he freed one file and threw it onto his desk, "and the music case," he added a second file. "Both involved the use of equations and mechanics to create perfect works of art."

Toby looked up from his computer, confused, "Yes, but Temple destroyed the only copy of the algorithm and the machine that made that painting only copied originals. Besides that, the information is classified."

"Certain aspects are classified," Walter pointed out, "but not the fact that they existed period. And I'm not suggesting Ralph use the exact same programs – that would be cheating anyway – I'm suggesting he write his own programs."

Ralph nodded excitedly, "That would be so cool!"

"And it does say parents can help, as long as they don't actually do the art itself," Walter read from the paper, hoping the warmth in his face didn't show through when he inadvertently referred to himself as a parent. He drove on, hoping no one would catch it, "If you picked one that you wanted to try, I could help you with the base coding and you can take it from there. So Ralph," Walter plopped back down on the couch and put an arm around the boy's shoulders, "what medium would you like to use?"

~~00~~

"I uploaded hex coding into the software," Ralph explained as he clacked away at the keyboard of the laptop Walter had given him a few weeks before, only to be used at the garage and under adult supervision. Paige had been hesitantly to allow the gift at all, after the Justice Department incident, but she'd eventually caved under certain conditions. "I've also programmed it to pick up color complements that people statistically respond best to, and use them together."

Walter was sitting close behind the boy, watching in awe as the numbers and letters quickly flitted across the screen. "And what are you going to do about actual imagery?"

"I've also uploaded a catalogue of geometrics." Walter smirked at this, because one of the first things they'd bonded over was geometric shapes, and it had become a sort of symbol of affection between them.

"I brought the paints," a voice called from the front door, and everyone looked up to see Cabe walking in, holding up a small wooden box. "I billed it to Homeland; said you guys needed it for a case-related project."

"Over here," Happy said, directing him to the arm of the machine she was putting together, keeping to the specs Ralph and Sylvester had drawn up for her. Cabe helped her empty the paint tubes onto a thin metal pallet that the brush would dip down into when Ralph finished with the programming.

Toby walked over, holding his own laptop and setting it down on the desk in front of the boy. "All right, Ralphy-boy, I've finished loading all of what I believe to be the best songs into this program. What are you going to do with it?"

The boy switched over to the second laptop, "I'll isolate common structures and write a program that will alter them to an original piece. It will output sheet music that I can run through an app that transcribes them to actual instruments."

"And what exactly am I doing?" Paige wondered from behind her desktop computer, where she'd been asked to watch a screen of racing white numbers until something happened.

Ralph smiled at her, "You're waiting for a video to pop up."

"A video of what?"

"Walter helped me run a scan of all orbiting satellites, looking for one that has an unrestricted video connection. That means we can use it without illegally hacking in."

She glanced at Walter, who gave her a nod to show everything was, indeed, on the up-and-up. "And what do I do when a video pops up?"

"Find something pretty, and then tell me," Ralph said with a shrug, busying himself with his coding. This went on for hours before Paige finally dragged her son home for bed, but after school the next day he was right back in it, and for the next two days after that. He'd selected an image from a satellite that they'd managed to connect to (a private one, owned by a business in Japan) and ran it through three different editing programs before printing and framing it, then he'd instructed Happy on the last details of the painting machine, and ran a set of speakers to Toby's laptop, which held the music program.

Finally, on the night before the project was due, everything was almost ready to go. "I'm starting the painting program and the music program," Ralph said through a big yawn. "They'll run all night, and in the morning I'll have art." He and his mother were staying the night in the loft so he could look everything over when he woke up, and then load it up and take it to school. Walter loved this. Even though Happy lived downstairs, she kept to herself so much that he always felt like he lived alone, and it could be an unpleasant feeling at times.

"All right, buddy," Walter put his hand between Ralph's shoulder blades, "let's let the machines work, then. Bedtime."

Paige smiled from the couch, where she'd sat down to watch the mechanical arm of the painting machine dip into the oil paints and then lift again to spread across a canvas. "Your PJs are in a duffel bag in the upstairs bathroom," she told her son. "Why don't you take a shower and get into bed; we'll be up in a bit." When the boy skipped up the stairs to do as he was told, Paige turned to Walter and let out an incredulous laugh, "I cannot believe he did all of this."

"He's a genius," the man said by way of explanation. "This is how his mind works – that in and of itself is a masterpiece."

"I'm happy he's around people that understand him," she said softly when Walter sat down next to her, "and can help him with things like this."

Walter made a noise in the back of his throat, what sounded like an agreement, and then leaned his head back so his neck rested over the back of the couch. "We haven't done a project with this many components in a long time. It kind of feels like the old days, when we all first found each other and had fun seeing what we all could do – finding where we fit together."

"Why don't you do stuff like this anymore?"

He shrugged, "We got busy. We had to figure out how to make money, keep the business afloat so we _could_ stay around each other. Money became a priority, and everything else – all the fun stuff – just sort of…fell away."

There was a long pause before Paige piped brightly, "Well, now you're making reliable money. Now you can afford to do projects like this; I think you guys should do it more often."

He smiled and blinked lazily at her, "I think so too."

She smiled back, then reached out and gave him a little knock against the shoulder, "Come on, genius. Bedtime."

"It's not even nine yet."

"You're not tired?"

"I'm exhausted," he admitted. "I just thought someone should point out how early it is; we're getting old." He stood and followed Paige up the stairs, where Bixby was sitting straight-backed outside of the bathroom door like a fuzzy guard, eyes alert when the two adults hit the landing. They took turns changing in the bedroom area and then settled in the living room, waiting for Ralph to finish in the shower so they could both say goodnight.

When the boy came out of the bathroom, Paige scooped him up and carried him over to the twin bed, lying him down and kissing his forehead, smoothing his wet hair back. "You are so brilliant and I am so impressed," she murmured against his hair, "I love you very much."

"I love you, Mom."

She smiled and stepped back so Walter could have his turn. He copied her motion of sitting on the bed and putting his hand through the boy's hair. "You know, people always assume that math and science are cold, dull – that they can't be beautiful. You're going to prove them wrong tomorrow." He gave him a quick kiss on the top of the head, "I'm so proud of you, buddy. Sweet dreams."

"I love you, Walter," Ralph said as the man stood.

Walter froze, but just for a moment. "I love you, too," he replied, and though it was the first time he'd said it out loud, he knew immediately that there was no denying it. He loved that boy like his own, and he always would. When he turned to make his way to the couch, where he'd set up a bed for himself, he saw Paige staring at him from the archway that led to the bedroom area. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.

~~00~~

"Walter," a voice whispered into the darkness a couple of hours later. The man, who hadn't been asleep yet, rolled over and opened his eyes to see Paige standing back in the archway. "Are you asleep?"

"No," he said quietly, then stood to walk over to her so he wouldn't wake Ralph, who was sleeping peacefully seven feet away. "Is everything okay?"

She nodded, "I just couldn't sleep, and I know a lot of times it takes you a while so I thought you might still be up."

"Good guess," he laughed, then followed her back into the bedroom. "Why can't you sleep?"

"I just," she stuttered, like she wasn't sure where to begin. "I was just thinking about things that I wanted to say to you, and I couldn't find the words, and the frustration of it was keeping me up."

"Things you want to say…to me," Walter repeated, trying not to let his hopes get too high. It could be good or bad; he wasn't the best at keeping track of when he was being a decent person or a bad person, and Paige had a habit lately of waiting until after the fact to inform him. It was out of respect, she said, so she didn't undermine him in front of his team. Still, he hoped she was thinking good things.

"It's nothing bad," she said, as if reading his mind. "It's about Ralph."

"Please don't thank me again," Walter said with exasperation, "because we've been over this: Ralph is a priority for me."

"It's not that," she shook her head and sat down on the bed, taking his hand and pulling him down with her. "It's not about what you do for him; it's what you do for me. It makes me…" She stopped and screwed up her face in thought. As she'd said, she'd been having trouble coming up with the right words. "It makes me happy, that he has someone like you. And when you tell him that you're proud of him, or that you love him, it makes me feel good that I have a child who people invest so much love into."

Walter grinned down at his hand, which was still in hers. "You're raising him so well."

She took in a deep breath and said, "I want you to know…that I trust you with Ralph. Completely. Everyone else on the team, yeah, sure, I know they love him and they'd never do anything to hurt him. But you are the one person, above anyone else besides myself, that I know would die for Ralph." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "You don't know what that means to me."

He could feel his heartbeat picking up, and he decided that now would be a perfect time to be fearless, but this scared the hell out of him. He sucked in a breath and said slowly, "He's not the only one I'd die for."

This made Paige think back. To Walter taking her place on a boat full of RPGs. Walter covering her body with his own during a fire fight. Walter telling other team members to take her and get out of the way of danger, even when it left him alone in the thick of it. She'd always assumed it was for the reason he always stated: He didn't want to leave Ralph without a mother. And she was sure that was largely true, but maybe there was an equally large part of him that didn't want to leave the world without a Paige.

Slowly, daringly, she reached out with her free hand and touched her index finger to the bottom of his chin, turning his face up so she could look into those big brown eyes, made even wider by the dilation in the darkness. She let her hand keep creeping upward until it was cupping the side of his face, her thumb brushing lightly against his cheekbone. She came closer to him, her head blotting out the dim light from the kitchen, her breath warm on his face. Walter's breathing started to get rapid and his body was overcome with a strange mix of hot and cold as he let his free hand travel up her thigh and rest on her hip as she grew nearer.

Paige's lips brushed against his, a light meeting that lasted only a fraction of a second before they pulled away from each other, but that was all it took to ignite them, like dry fuses in a brushfire. Walter stared at her for a moment before his eyes slipped shut and he dipped back in to capture her lips once more, still soft, but this time deeper. She responded instantly, tilting her head and molding her mouth to his, hand moving to tangle in his messy hair. Their tongues never broke boundaries and their hands never travelled too far, but somehow it felt like the most intimate kiss either of them had ever experienced, and when they broke apart seconds later they were both breathing heavily and leaning into one another.

"This is a tricky situation," Walter whispered huskily, and his breath on her lips made her shiver.

"It is tricky," Paige agreed, then kissed him again.

"Probably something we need to discuss in a certain amount of detail."

"We do need to talk," another kiss.

"All right, so I think we should—"

"Walter," she pulled back and chuckled, brushing her nose against his. "Take me to dinner tomorrow night. We'll talk about it then. Right now, I'm happy, and I want to stay that way."

"Okay," he agreed, then gave her another quick kiss. "Okay," he repeated, and made to lie down on the bed. He pulled her to him and she fit into him quickly, naturally, the curve of her back matching the curve of his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and they quickly fell asleep.


	8. Recovery

**A/N:** _Okay, so I have been out of the fic-writing world for a while - I've just been reading lately - but I finally found a show that I love enough to start writing again. I'm a bit rusty, so sorry if this got a bit long-winded.  
_**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion._

**Chapter One:**"Recovery"_ \- Megan is admitted to the hospital, and Ralph is curious about her illness._

~~00~~

"I know it's no five-star restaurant," Walter said as he speared some lettuce onto the end of his fork, "but I had a crazy day."

"Oh yeah?" Paige folded her fingers together and rested her chin on them, "Tell me about it?"

Walter blushed at her, because she'd witnessed his "crazy day" firsthand. It had started beautifully, with them waking up in each others' arms and sharing a chaste kiss against the pillows before they woke Ralph and went downstairs to view his works of art, which indeed they were. A beautiful painting, full of swirls of color that faded into one another, splashed through with complements and shadows and smaller shapes that seemed too intricate to even begin to comprehend. And the song, a gorgeous acoustic piece that wove together guitar and piano and violin, with a gentle rapping in the background from a djembe. Walter had carefully wrapped the painting and the framed photograph, then recorded the song and gave it to Ralph on the flash drive before he and Paige drove the boy to school to present the art project.

They'd come back to the garage and worked an open-and-shut case with Cabe, not difficult but distracting enough that they didn't have much time to talk about recent events. When they finally did, and the subject of dinner had come up, Walter had planned on revisiting his tactic from Valentine's Day and hacking one of Paige's favorite upscale spots. Then Ralph's school had called, and the two had been distracted again, going in for a visit with the teacher.

Ralph had hacked his teacher's e-mail and changed all her passwords, refusing to give her the new codes because she'd failed him on his art project. "He didn't create art," she'd said, flustered, "he used technology to do his work for him."

"He _created_ that technology," Walter had countered, "which created the art, so yes, he created art."

"That wasn't the assignment, Mr. O'Brien."

"The terms were not clearly defined," Walter had become heated, gesticulating wildly as he tried to get this imbecile to understand logic. "I read the print-out – it said to choose a medium, and Ralph chose technology, and within that technology he chose oil paints and acoustic instruments and a satellite focal camera. He worked on those programs for an entire week, he wrote the presentation – he met your criteria exactly."

Mrs. Haddly had turned bright red as anger and frustration took hold of her, "Technology is not art. Any student could make a beautiful painting with that program – technology is cold and unartistic."

"I'd like to see you do one beautiful thing with technology," Walter had growled. Paige had attempted to put an arm on his shoulder, to calm him, but he'd shaken her off. "What he did was special – was awe-inspiring – but you're too caught up in your bohemian idealism to even consider that there might be a different way for someone like Ralph, who has a minimal right-brain, to hold his own with the artistic crowd. He created something amazing, and what more could you have wanted to come out of this project than that?!"

It had gone back and forth like this for a while before Mrs. Haddly had finally relented and given Ralph the A he rightly deserved, and then asked in a shaky voice if Paige could please leave Ralph's father at home next time if he was going to make such a scene. This had filled Walter with an absurd amount of joy – being referred to as Ralph's father felt every bit as wonderful as could have imagined, but he tried not to show how he felt. He didn't want to put Paige in the awkward and (for him) hurtful position of telling him again that he wasn't the boy's dad.

When they'd arrived back at the garage, everyone had gone home (or out) for the evening, leaving just the three, and it was too late to hack the dinner list anywhere nice. So they'd gone to the grocery store together, bought salad fixings, a rotisserie chicken, and a berry chocolate cheesecake and gone back to Scorpion for dinner. Now Ralph was sitting on the couch with a plate of chicken, watching the History Channel, and Walter and Paige were at the dining room table with a candle lit between them.

"So about the kiss," Paige said abruptly.

Walter, caught off-guard, choked on his bite of salad and put a knuckle to his lips as he forced the swallow down, coughing at the end, and then trying to play it off nonchalantly. "Yeah, about that."

Paige pushed some food around on her plate, "You said we needed to discuss it in detail."

"Yes."

"I take it you have some concerns?"

"Yes," he cleared his throat, put his fork down, and laced his fingers together like this was a business meeting. But it wasn't a business meeting. It was Paige. And he owed it to her to treat this like an emotional issue, and not a merger proposition. He unlaced his fingers and cleared his throat again, shaking his head, wondering where to begin.

Before he could say a word, Paige reached out and touched his arm, "Just say what you feel. It doesn't have to sound smart."

He nodded and thought another moment, then said, "Ralph is important to me."

She smiled, "I know that."

"No, I mean," he shifted in his seat, "Ralph is…everything to me. I can't imagine my life without him." The woman was watching him, attentive, but Walter couldn't look at her as he spoke. Emotion was not his strongpoint. "I _won't_ imagine my life without him."

When he fell silent, Paige took this as her cue. "What do you mean?"

He ran his thumb over the beads of water his drinking glass had left on the table. "I mean, I have no claim to Ralph. Not legally, anyway. And if you and I got into something and it didn't work out – which is how my relationships tend to go, and quickly – you could take him away from me, and there's no way I'd ever be able to see him again."

Her face screwed up in offense, "Is that the kind of person you think I am? You think I'd take my son away from the people that he needs to be around – would take him away from his family?"

"Of course not," Walter shook his head. "But even if you kept bringing him around, it would never be the same between you and I and not only would that affect the way we work together, but it would affect the way Ralph sees me. He values me, sure," he sighed, "but he trusts and loves you. You're his mom, and he is going to follow your lead every time. You are the only constant in his life – the only thing he knows for sure – and he'll fall in line so he doesn't have to see you upset."

Paige was flattered by these words, but didn't think this was an appropriate time to show it. She slowly removed her hand from Walter's arm and asked, "So you're saying you don't want to do this?"

"What I'm saying," he contradicted slowly, softly, finally daring to look at her, "is that I want nothing more than to do this. But I can't. Not without guarantees – not with the possibility of losing what I have with Ralph."

She sighed, but it was an understanding noise, "I wish you would have said something stupid. I can't really fault you for being a good person, you know? If you'd said something stupid, I could at least be mad at you about this situation."

He thought for a minute, then smirked and nodded to her teal dress. "That is a terrible color on you."

She laughed and reached across again, this time to thump him on the shoulder. "Jerk."

He laughed as well, as his phone started to ring in his pocket. Still smiling, he lifted it to his ear, "Yeah?" Paige watched as all the amusement drained out of his face in an instant, his eyes going round and dark, his hand tightening around the phone. "When?" He asked whoever was on the other end of the line. "Why wasn't I informed sooner? …Of course not, because you're an idiot… Where is she? …I'm on my way." He rang off and shoved the phone back into his pocket, jumping up from his seat and making a quick pace for the door. He grabbed his jacket from the hook and put his arms through it before opening the door.

"Walter!" Paige called after his, snuffing out the candle before standing to follow. "What's wrong?"

"Megan's in the ER," he said shortly. "Will you lock up?"

"Like hell," Paige said, pulling on her own coat. "Ralph, turn the tv off and come with me, please."

Walter stopped and watched as the boy did as he was told, and said to Paige, "You guys don't have to come."

"Megan is our friend," she said, like there could be no debate in this situation. "So are you. We're coming." The man didn't have the focus to argue, so he just nodded and went through the door with the woman and child hot on his heels.

Paige drove, because she knew Walter wouldn't be safe rushing behind the wheel. She went five miles over the speed limit and took every shortcut she knew, but by the time they arrived at St. Stephen's Hospital Walter was a fidgeting mess of impatience anyway. He bolted from the car before she even got it into park, and they had to struggle to catch up with him in the ER entrance as he demanded to know where Megan O'Brien was being kept.

"Dr. Evans will want to speak to you," the nurse behind the counter said, and then picked up the telephone to page the doctor over the intercom.

"I don't want to speak to Dr. Evans," Walter told her. "I want to see my sister."

"Sir, you need to speak with the do—"

Walter slammed his hands down on the counter, making the nurse jump back. "I want to see my sister!"

"Mr. O'Brien." The man turned when a doctor in a three-piece suit, covered by a white coat, called to him from down the hall. "Please join me in the waiting room."

Walter opened his mouth – presumably to demand to see his sister again – but Paige quickly grabbed his arm and started steering him down the hall to the doctor, who led them into a waiting room. "Dr. Evans, I presume," Paige greeted, shaking his hand.

"Yes. Are you Mrs. O'Brien?"

"No, I'm a friend."

"I see." The doctor looked at Walter, "You know I have to ask—"

"Yes, you may discuss the details of my sister's condition in front of these two people," Walter said on automation, and it broke Paige's heart because she knew from his tone that he'd had to say those words before. "Now, what _is_ my sister's condition?"

The doctor sighed, crossing his arms over his chest, "Megan contracted a cold late last week."

"She told me about that – said it was nothing."

"And it may not have been, at the time." Dr. Evans pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, "But her respiratory system has already been weakened by the MS, and therefore wasn't able to clear the secretions in her nose and throat, and her cold turned into aspiration pneumonia."

"Pneumonia," Walter said the word weakly, and he sank down into one of the waiting room chairs, covering his eyes with one hand.

Paige looked between him and the doctor, "That's very bad?"

"When we were kids," Walter explained, dropping his hand from his head and rubbing it against its double, eyes on the tiled floor, "right after she was diagnosed with MS, she had pneumonia. The GP told us to make our peace – there wasn't any hope. And that was when her illness was new and hadn't corrupted as much of her system."

"Mr. O'Brien," Dr. Evans cut him off, "we are optimistic that Megan will come out of this just fine. The experimental drug trial has benefited her greatly – her body is strong enough to fight off the infection. She just needs some help."

"You didn't see her last time," Walter whispered to the floor, and covered his eyes again.

Paige glanced at him, her heart breaking, and decided to take control of the situation for him, the way he did for her any time she was too overwhelmed to take care of herself. "What kind of help?" She asked, her hand tightening around her son's as he looked up, a little lost.

The doctor followed Paige's lead and directed his words to her, "Well, she's too weak to swallow on her own, but that's easy to work around. We've got her on an IV so she doesn't dehydrate, and we'll set up a feeding tube for her until her lungs clear. Now, the feeding tube won't be a pleasant experience, especially considering she'll be conscious during its insertion and removal, but it will help her get the nourishment she needs."

"So she _is_ conscious," Paige clarified.

"Yes."

"I want to see her," Walter said through gritted teeth, but didn't drop his hand.

Dr. Evans shifted, like he was trying to decide where to look, and eventually decided to keep addressing Paige directly. "Considering Megan's condition, we've put her in a clean room."

"You can observe a clean room, though," Paige recalled the scene from a medical drama she used to watch. "Talk to whoever's inside."

The doctor nodded, "And we're happy to let you do that, but I'd really like Megan to rest for now. This infection is taking a lot out of her, and we don't want to wear her out unnecessarily. There's a strong possibility she won't even need the feeding tube tomorrow if she gets the proper rest. Mr. O'Brien, we are really _very_ optimistic"

"How long?" Walter wanted to know.

"I'd like to let her sleep through the night."

The man looked up again, stared at the doctor for a long beat, then stripped off his coat and tossed it onto the chair beside him. "I'll wait." The doctor nodded and left them, and Paige sat as well, with Ralph in the chair between her and Walter.

"Paige," Walter said after several minutes of silence, and while there were no tears running down his face, his voice was choked and small. He looked at the woman with unguarded fear in his eyes, and repeated, "He didn't see her last time."

~~00~~

_"Mum, I don't understand," nine-year-old Walter said to his mother, and it was the first time she'd heard him say those words in…well, ever, really. Her boy understood everything. "Why can't she get better?"_

_"She was already very sick, love," his mother told him, putting her hand on his head and frowning when he pulled away, uncomfortable with her touch. She put on her brave face and pressed on, "Now she's more sick on top of it."_

_Walter's father ran a hand over his mouth and said, "Can ya do nothing for her, doctor?"_

_"Honestly, Mr. O'Brien," the GP said sorrowfully, shaking his head, "if I were ya, I'd call down to Father McDonough tomorrow; see if ya can't get him up here to say some last prayers for the poor soul."_

_Past the doctor and through the cracked door, Walter could see his sister. His strong, brave, beautiful older sister, laid out in her bed like a decrepit old crone. Her hair was a bird's nest, matted with sweat to her pale forehead. Her eyes were glazed and ringed with purple-black bruises, her lips dry and cracked, her entire body shaking. She was crying – she hadn't stopped crying in days, except when she was choking on her own lungs, unable to breathe enough to get a sob out._

_Later that night, when he snuck in to lie beside her in bed, clutching her hand, she confessed to him between breaths that she wished she'd just die. He snuck her favorite beaded bracelet from her wrist that same night, in case she really did._

~~00~~

"What is MS?" Paige was not fully awake, having fallen asleep some hours ago with her head in her hand, and was only somewhat roused by her son's quiet, tired voice.

"Multiple sclerosis," Walter was explaining in an equally exhausted tone. "Do you know what a myelin sheath is?"

"Mm," Ralph affirmed, "Toby told me about them when we were studying the biology of the mind. The myelin sheath protects the axis cylinder of the nerve fiber." Smart talk. This woke Paige completely, and she blinked and yawned a couple of times, but went unnoticed by the geniuses who carried on with their conversation. Walter had his arm around Ralph and the boy's head was rested against his side, and they both looked like they'd been asleep until recently.

"That's right. Did Toby tell you why those fibers need protection?"

"No, because Happy walked in and he got distracted."

Walter grinned weakly, then explained, "When a nerve loses its myelin sheath, the impulses become…corrupted, like when a computer gets a virus. Your messages don't go through as fast or as clear as they did before. Now, the more of those sheaths that you lose, the slower those transmissions get, and your body stops cooperating with you." With his free hand, he pushed his hair back out of his eyes and sighed, "Multiple sclerosis is caused by a mix-up in the immune system that tells your white blood cells that the myelin sheaths are viruses, and they begin to attack. Nobody knows for sure what makes the immune system do this, and that's a big reason there's no viable treatment for MS yet."

"Oh." There was a pause as Ralph snuggled closer to the man. "Walter, is Megan going to die?"

"Ralph!" Paige admonished, making both geniuses jump because they hadn't realized she was awake and listening to their conversation. Her son ducked his head guiltily.

Walter held a hand up to her. "It's okay. He just doesn't understand." To the boy he said, "The doctor says not tonight. And I have to believe that she's going to keep fighting, and live a long life."

"Does the data support that theory?"

"No," Walter laughed lightly, leaning down to kiss the top of the boy's head. "No, buddy, it doesn't, but it's not a theory. It's just…what I _need_ to believe. Sometimes, we just need to believe things, because it's the only way we can keep getting up in the morning."

Ralph frowned, "I don't understand."

"That's okay," the man told him, "it took me a long time to get it. Why don't you go back to sleep? I'll wake you up when they say we can go see Megan." The boy nodded obediently and nuzzled against his t-shirt before falling asleep under his mentor's arm, breathing evening out almost immediately. Once he was out, Paige got up and moved to the chair on Walter's other side, moving his coat out of the way and leaning close to him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, not wanting her son to hear her apologizing for him.

Walter shook his head, "It's really fine. When you're as smart as Ralph, not understanding something is the most frustrating thing in the world. When I was a kid, nobody would explain to me exactly what was wrong with Megan, and it killed me; I just wanted him to have the answers I never had." He sighed deeply, "Not that it ever helped me fix her."

"Hey." She wrapped one hand around his free arm and forced him to look at her, "She is going to be fine. Just like the doctor said. She's a strong woman, and that trial _you_ got her into has made her body stronger, too. She'll pull through this, and she's going to live for a long time."

"You can't know that," his voice was barely audible, a breathy whisper between them.

She gave his arm a squeeze, "Sometimes we just need to believe things, right?"

He stared at her for a long beat and then, without thinking too much about it, he leaned forward and caught her lips with his own. Paige reciprocated immediately, putting her hand on his chest to steady herself as his mouth pushed down on hers, hard, insistent, and her heart was heavy with all the unspoken emotion in the kiss. When he broke away, his eyes were sparkling with tears that he still would not let fall and his breathing was labored, but he smiled briefly and leaned his forehead against hers.

"You said this was a bad idea," Paige reminded him.

"I think you know the stakes," Walter whispered, "what I've been through, what Ralph has been through. I trust you, and if you say nothing is going to change my relationship with him, that's another thing I _need_ to believe."

~~00~~

"You scared the hell out of me," Walter whispered against his sister's hand the next morning. He and Paige had fallen asleep again shortly after Ralph, only to be woken at six in the morning by a smug Dr. Evans, who led them to the clean room and allowed Walter to change into sterile clothes and go in to see his sister. She'd been wide awake when he came into the room, smiling and holding out her arms for a hug, though it was clear she was feeling weak. Those purple bruises were around her eyes and she was pale, but it wasn't at all like when she was twelve – this time, she didn't look defeated. She looked determined to survive.

"I'm sorry, little brother," she told him, touching his face with the hand he didn't have hold of. "I really thought I was at the tail-end of that stupid cold."

"Well, you were," he frowned, "just not the end you thought."

"Har har." Megan looked over his head to the glass wall of her room, where Paige and Ralph were waiting just outside, smiling at her. "You brought the wife and kid."

He looked over his shoulder and blushed, stammering, "Wh-what? Paige isn't my…my wife. She's my—"

"Oh my god!" Megan interrupted, and gave him a whack on the chest. "There's something going on between you two, isn't there?"

He tried to play dumb, but it wasn't his area of expertise, "What? No. I mean, what? You must still have a fever."

"_Inis an fhírinne, deartháir!_"

"I _am_ telling the truth," he said through gritted teeth, but his eyes shifted away and she pointed at him and laughed, but it came out as more of a wheezing cough. "Megan," he shushed her, "they're going to hear you."

She raised her eyebrows and said, "_An bhfuil Paige labhairt na Gaeilge_?" (Does Paige speak Gaelic?) Walter shook his head no, and his sister smiled, "_Inis dom rud_." (Tell me everything.)

"_Phóg againn ach_," Walter confessed. (We only kissed.) "_Tá mé fós nach bhfuil cinnte tá sé ina smaoineamh maith._" (I'm still not sure it's a good idea.)

"_Tá tú eagla_," Megan surmised. (You're afraid.)

"_Chailliúint Ralph_." (Of losing Ralph.)

Megan shook her head, "_Gan chailliúint rud ar bith_." (Of not losing anything.) She switched back to English then, smiling that soft, knowing smile. "Of finding out there's more to life than work and facts and statistics."

Walter sighed and held her hand a little tighter, "Yeah, maybe." Then he smiled at her and went forward to kiss her cheek, "The doctor said I can't be in here long without running the risk of exposing you to more bacteria; I'm going to have to go outside. Do you need anything?"

"Bacon," she said without hesitation. "But the doctor says I can't have solids until I'm all better, which sucks because _all_ I want is bacon."

Walter laughed and stood, "They sell bacon soda at the shop down the street from Scorpion. Do you want some of that?"

She feigned a gag and shook her head, "Gross, no. You're useless to me – get out of here."

He gave her hand one last squeeze before letting go, "I'm going to hang around the hospital, so just let a nurse know if you need me."

"Sure, sure," she waved him away. "Kiss the wife and kid for me."

Walter made a face at her as he walked out of the clean room to the adjoining room, where he changed out of the scrubs and back into his street clothes, and went out to join Paige and Ralph at the glass. They all stared through at Megan, who had put her socks on her hands and was doing to a sock puppet opera to make them laugh – something about Mrs. Sockington socking Mr. Sockington in the sock-mouth with a socket wrench.

"What were you guys talking about in there, when you stopped speaking English?" Paige asked quietly so her son, who was cracking up over Megan's improvised songs, wouldn't hear. "I heard our names."

He shrugged, "She was just teasing me, the way she always does."

Paige hardly thought this was the extent of it, but she smiled and went along with it anyway. "That's what big sisters do, or so I've heard."

"Yeah." Walter kept his eyes on the glass, to his sister who was now making the Sockingtons address her, as the narrator of the story, directly. But slowly, his hand crept down and wrapped around Paige's, drawing it up to his mouth so he could press a soft kiss to her knuckles. Ralph's laughter stopped and when the two adults look, they saw Megan had stopped moving around and had instead pressed one sock-gloved hand to her mouth to hide her wide smile.

"Is she okay?" Ralph wanted to know.

Walter smirked, "Yeah, bud, she's fine." He dropped Paige's hand and went around her to pick Ralph up, hitching him against his side. "I'm sure she'd love to see you up close, though. How about you go in with me next time the doctor says it's okay."

Ralph nodded excitedly, "I could make her a light screen and she could do shadow puppets instead of sock puppets."

"I'll bet she'd love that." Walter held the boy up with one arm, and the other hand found Paige's again. The wife and kid. He was alarmed by how good that sounded to him.


	9. Not-So-Long Goodbye

**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion._

**Chapter Two:**"Not-So-Long Goodbye"_ \- Drew leaves for good and Paige is prepared to pick up the pieces, but finds Ralph is not as upset as she thought he'd be_. (One more chapter after this one, guys!)

~~00~~

"He loves it," Paige whispered from Walter's bed.

With his head buried in her hair, Walter murmured, "Mm, I'm glad." He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and tightened his arms around her, "I just figured you guys have been staying the night so often, he deserved a private space." For the past week, he and Happy had been working on sealing programmed LED lights between panes of frosted polyplastic and connecting them to a remote. The remote changed the colors and, between the thickness of the plastic and the frosted texture, they came out looking like a flat paint rather than a bright light. They'd positioned the panes in a 12 X 12 square around his bed, moving over the television and bookshelves to condense the living area down a bit, giving Ralph his own makeshift bedroom. They put in a garage sale work desk and Happy installed a few wall shelves for clothes and books, and Walter bought the boy his own set of pillows and linens for the bed. When Ralph had come over earlier than day he'd been excited, immediately going into the space to fiddle with the color options and put his own spin on the programming, which Walter had left up on the laptop on the new desk. Paige had been overwhelmed with emotion, wrapping her hands around her boyfriend's bicep and leaning her head on his shoulder, kissing his shoulder as her son _ooh_ed and _aah_ed over his new bedroom.

They'd had dinner together, watched a movie, and now Ralph was in bed, supposed to be sleeping but still switching the colors of his walls. Walter and Paige were lying together, watching the shifting hues, and talking about everything and nothing in hushed tones. They'd been together for three months now, which was usually the breaking point for Ralph's relationships, but everything felt like Day One to them. Paige loved to learn from him, and he from her. And while they'd had their arguments, there was never something so big that one of them wasn't willing to apologize, like when Walter got too touchy about Paige being around Drew, or when Paige questioned Walter's motives for wanting to go to Ralph's parent-teacher conferences.

"I can't believe you gave my son a bedroom and I don't even have a drawer in your dresser yet," Paige giggled, rolling over to face Walter.

His brow furrowed, "I emptied the entire left side of the dresser for you two weeks ago."

She drew back, surprised. "What? You didn't tell me that."

"I did."

She thought a moment, then rolled her eyes. "Did you tell me after…you know? Because you know I'm only half-awake after that; I never remember anything you say."

Walter laughed and moved in to kiss her. "Paige, I cleared out the left side of the dresser for you."

"Oh my goodness," she feigned a gasp, playing along, "that is so thoughtful, Walter – thank you." She put one hand on the side of his face and drew him back to her, kissing him more deeply. They knew it couldn't go much further with Ralph awake, but they kissed until they were too tired to kiss anymore, and then fell asleep in each other's arms.

Walter woke the next morning to an absence in his bed, rolling over to find the space still warm but void of the beautiful woman that usually slept beside him. "Paige," he mumbled sleepily, opening his heavy eyelids and squinting into the bright light that poured through the curtains. The woman was changing out of her pajamas and into the street clothes she usually kept in a bag by the door, but were now in the top drawer of the dresser. He checked the alarm clock and yawned, "What are you doing? It's only six-thirty."

"Drew called early," she told him, crawling across the bed to give him a long, lingering kiss before drawing back to put on her shoes. "He's scheduled to fly out to Portland again at ten, but he needs to talk to me about something before he goes."

"Talk about what?" Walter grunted, lying back and putting his arm over his eyes to shield them from the light.

"Not sure." She finished lacing her boot and leaned in to kiss him again. "Can you take Ralph to school, though, so I don't have to rush back?"

Walter nodded and kissed her once more before she left, then rolled over to catch another half-hour of sleep before he had to get Ralph up and ready for school. Paige had neglected to call that morning, so Walter had to go through the riggumroll of producing his ID and employment information, relationship to Ralph, and then wait while the wrinkled old woman behind the front desk called Paige and confirmed that it was okay this man had Ralph in his charge. Walter wished he could say this was the first time he'd been through this, but it wasn't; he wasn't Ralph's father, and he would always be treated with suspicion.

He got back to the garage around eight-fifteen, right as his cell phone began to ring. He smiled when he read the display. "Paige," he greeted, "how did it—"

"I'm not going to make it in to work today," she cut him off, and her voice sounded flat and hoarse.

Walter immediately went on high alert. "What happened?"

"Drew—" She started, but her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again, "Drew's leaving."

"Yeah, for Portland," Walter said slowly. "He's got another two-week tour, right?"

"No," her voice wavered. "He's going to sign a five-year contract. He asked me to move with him again, but I said no. Walter, he threatened to sue for custody of Ralph if I didn't go."

"What?" Walter's voice cracked like a whip, and his body went cold.

Paige scoffed, "Oh, trust me, I knocked that idea out of his head right away. I told him that, given his seven year absence, our support system, and Ralph's general well-being are here in LA, he wouldn't have a chance. I told him that if he wanted to keep being part of Ralph's life, he'd have to stay here, but he said the opportunity in Portland was too good to pass up. I told him he should just sign over his parental rights now, because I'm not going to let him hurt my son again." She sighed, and Walter could imagine her running her hand through her hair, "I'm going to pick Ralph up from school at lunch time, give him the rest of the day off; this is going to break his heart."

"You guys could come over here," Walter was quick to suggest. "I can give everyone the day off and the three of us can just talk."

"No, thanks," she said weakly. "I think we just need some mother-son time."

He nodded to himself, then loosened the grip he hadn't realize had become so tight on the phone. "Will you be in tomorrow?"

There was a long pause, then, "I'm not sure. I'll have to see how Ralph takes it."

"Call me if you need _anything_."

"I will. Thank you." They rang off then, and Walter shoved his phone into his pocket and dropped down onto the couch, burying his hands in his hair. Drew couldn't do this. He couldn't show up after seven years of absentee fatherhood and then bail again after just ten months, especially when he'd spent half of those ten months renting himself out to a baseball team on the other side of the country. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair to Ralph, a brilliant boy who deserved so much better. He could do something about this. He had to.

He had his keys in hand and was heading for the door when it opened and Toby and Happy came walk-of-shaming in. "Walt, hey," Happy greeted with a light blush, "do we have a job?"

"No," he said shortly.

"Jaw tensed, purposeful stride, white knuckles," Toby observed, then raised his eyebrows. "Where are you heading, Walter?"

"Airport."

"Why?"

Instead of answering, Walter simply left and slammed the door shut behind him. He drove as fast as his battered old car could manage and made it to LAX in record time, bought the cheapest plane ticket, and found his way to the only gate with a flight heading to Maine. He found Drew sitting in one of the bench seats, fidgeting with his ball cap. "You bastard," he said, forgoing a hello or a hey-how-ya-doin'. He charged forward and hauled the man up by the collar of the shirt, exhibiting more testosterone than he ever had in his life. "You can't do this!"

Drew swatted at his hands, getting out of the hold easily and dropping back onto his own two feet. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Walter grabbed him again, "You cannot abandon Ralph again."

"I'm not trying to!" Drew countered, "I told Paige to come with me."

"Ralph's life is here," Walter growled. "I understand that he needs more parents, but he also needs to be around the people that understand him – that know what's going on in his head. You have to stay."

"I can't," the ball player said with a set look in his eyes. "They're going to play me for one more season and then they said I have a real shot in the majors – this is what I've been waiting for my entire life."

"And Ralph has spent his entire life waiting for a dad!" Walter yelled, oblivious to the fact that everyone in the terminal was staring, and security was standing nearby; people did not like yelling in airports. "You can't leave him again. If you do, he'll never let you back in; he won't risk it."

Drew scoffed, "Well, with you in his life—"

"I am not Ralph's father." It killed him to say it, because every part of him felt otherwise. "_You_ are his father, and he needs you. You can't go," Walter's voice was getting desperate now, pleading. "You can't do this to him."

Drew hesitated, face torn, but then it set again and he looked the genius in the eye. "I can't stay. Ralph will understand, eventually."

"Then sign over your rights," Walter growled, finding that he had to make a conscious effort to not hit the man. "Give him over completely. Don't let him live constantly wondering if you're going to come back, because you're never going to put him first, and you're never going to deserve to be in his life again. That boy," he got very close, his voice very low, "is so much better than you. He is better than you could ever hope to be." He released Drew then, pushing him backward as he did so, and stalked out of the airport. He was breathing heavily the entire ride back to the garage, shaking, trying to think of what he could do to make this situation better for Ralph. Nothing came to him.

~~00~~

Walter, Sylvester, Happy and Toby were having dinner together that night, because it had been a while since the original Scorpion team had a night together, and Walter had filled the others in on the current situation. They were almost as infuriated as him.

"Walt," Happy said, picking another dumpling out of the Chinese container on the coffee table, "you should erase that guy. License, birth certificate, past employment, credit score – everything."

"Paige wouldn't like me doing that," Walter sighed, pushing rice around with his chopsticks. "She's a better person than all of us, with the exception of Sly."

"Not me," Sylvester shook his head like he was disappointed in himself. "I was just thinking of fabricating an arrest record bad enough to get him blacklisted from baseball."

Toby clapped a hand on his shoulder, "That's my boy." Then he leaned back in his chair and shook his head, "I said from the very beginning that letting Drew back in was a bad idea."

"You were biased," Walter said. "We all were."

"Are you _defending_ him?" Happy demanded incredulously.

He shook his head, "Of course not. I'm just saying, I don't want anybody telling Paige I-told-you-so; this is going to be hard enough for her. And for Ralph." In a genuine speak-of-the-devil moment, the garage door opened and the liaison charged in, holding on to her son's hand.

"Walter, can I speak with you?" Without waiting for an answer, she let go of Ralph and stalked toward the kitchen, her boyfriend right behind her. Before he could open his mouth to ask what was wrong, she spun on him and demanded, "What have you been telling Ralph?"

Walter thought for a moment, but couldn't think what she could be referring to. "What do you mean?"

"He's not upset, Walter," she gestured to her son, who had plopped down next to Happy and was sharing the dumplings with her. They were all shooting curious glances toward the kitchen. "I told him that his dad was leaving again and probably not coming back, and do you know what he said? He said Drew wasn't his dad anyway. Walter," she snapped, "_what have you been telling him_?"

The genius shook his head frantically, confused, "I haven't said anything."

"I told you I didn't want you guys bad-mouthing Drew in front of Ralph."

"And we didn't!"

"You must have, or else why would he say something like that?" Being in the kitchen was pointless; Paige was speaking loud enough for everyone to hear anyway. "I'm furious with Drew, of course, but I don't want Ralph to hate him. It's not healthy for him to grow up feeling that way toward his father – you know that better than anyone."

Walter reached for her but she took a step back. "Paige," he said helplessly, "I swear to you, I didn't say anything about Drew not being Ralph's dad. You told me not to talk that way in front of him, so I didn't."

"Um," they were interrupted by the four onlookers coming closer to the kitchen. Toby was holding up one finger, a guilty look on his face, "I might have some insight here."

Paige turned to face him, arms crossed in front of her chest, "What did you tell him?"

"Nothing bad," Toby insisted. "Or, I mean, nothing specific to Drew. It's just, when he first showed up, I wanted Ralph to have some…some information. To cushion the blow if things didn't work out."

"So you told him Drew wasn't his dad?!"

Ralph took a step forward, "He didn't say that, Mom. I figured it out for myself."

Paige looked at her son, took a deep breath, and tried to quell her anger. "What _did_ he say to you, sweetie? Help me understand."

"He told me," Ralph looked up at Toby for a moment, remembering, "that there's a difference between a father and a dad. A father is someone who contributes to your genetic makeup; gives you life – blood." He looked away from Toby and his gaze shifted between Paige and Walter. "But he said a dad is the person who's always there. He rewards you, punishes you, gets excited for you or scared for you, and does everything to keep you happy and healthy and safe. Dads help you with homework and teach you things and listen to you and talk about girls. Dads love you unconditionally and never give up on you. Sometimes a father becomes a dad, and sometimes not." The boy shrugged and looked at his mother, "My father didn't."

Overwhelmed with emotion, Paige went down to her knees and put her hands on her son's shoulders, "I'm so sorry you feel that way, honey."

Ralph shook his head, smiling, "It's okay, Mom. I still have a dad." Her brow furrowed in confusion, and she watched with tears in her eyes as her son lifted his finger to point. "Walter's my dad. He has since the day he told Mr. Nimos not to yell at me."

Paige started to say something, but was cut off when Walter swooped in and picked Ralph up, holding him close to his chest and burying his face against the boy's shoulder. She stood and wrapped her arms around both of them, tears flowing freely down her face now, while the rest of the team looked on with knowing smiles. Nobody could ever deny that Walter had been Ralph's dad since the day they met.

~~00~~

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Paige whispered that night as they lay in bed together, hands clasped on the pillow between them. "I should have trusted that you wouldn't say anything bad about Drew."

"Oh, I've said plenty of bad things about him," Walter told her honestly. "Just not in front of Ralph."

She smiled and reached with her free hand to smooth over his hair. "And you're okay with this? Ralph considering you his dad, I mean."

"I've never been happier about anything in my life." And it was true. The man tilted his chin down and pressed a kiss to the forehead of the boy, who had fallen asleep between them in the bed.

Paige was quiet for a moment, then said, "I love you, Walter. I know it's not something you believe in and I don't expect you to recip—"

"I love you, too," he responded, stilling her nervous rambling.

"You do?"

"I love you," he repeated. "I didn't believe in romantic love before, because I'd never experienced it and I couldn't comprehend it. But with you and Ralph in my life," he chuckled lightly, "there's no way I can deny it."

Paige scooted a little closer and leaned over her son's head to press a soft, sweet kiss to Walter's lips. He returned it eagerly, pushing the boundaries as much as he could with a ten-year-old boy between them. After a moment, Paige let herself fall back to her spot in bed, but she didn't stop smiling. Her son's father might be gone again, but his dad was still here, and she had him.


	10. Birthday Wishes

**A/N:** _Okay, so I have been out of the fic-writing world for a while - I've just been reading lately - but I finally found a show that I love enough to start writing again. I'm a bit rusty, so sorry if this got a bit long-winded.  
_**You're My Chosen:** _Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&amp;R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!_  
**Disclaimer:** _Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion._

**Chapter One:**"Birthday Wishes"_ \- Walter wants to give Ralph a very important birthday gift, but is unsure if he'll want it. (__**This is the last one, guys! Thanks so much for sticking with me this whole time, your feedback has been amazingly inspiring, and I hope to write another one soon! I've never done prompts before, but I might consider it, so if you want to inbox me some ideas I might get the bug again! 3**__ )_

~~00~~

Paige was a monster. Momzilla. She tore through Scorpion for the entire week leading up to Ralph's eleventh birthday party, barking orders and shoving important work out of the way to clamber onto desks and hang streamers from every surface. Overcompensating, Toby said. On Ralph's last birthday, he thought his father was just busy seeing movies – on this one, he knew he was out there, and had elected to not stay with his son, and had in fact signed over his rights a month after leaving California. She needed him to feel loved, like he had a full family and everything he needed right in front of him. Though they weren't crazy about her madness, the team loved Ralph and signed on for various tasks to help give him the best birthday ever. Happy was in charge of decorations (electronic gizmos to put a new spin on traditional party ideas), Sylvester was on invitations (coding the coolest display of e-vites ever seen), Toby had party games (Paige told him it was because of his knowledge of adolescent psychology, but really it was because he was so childlike himself), Cabe was on food (he had friends in high, tasty places), and Walter was with Paige, bouncing around from project to project. They dabbled in a little bit of everything, on top of coordinating gifts from the grown-ups and shopping for party favors. They'd decided to have the party at the garage, because it was Ralph's favorite place, and a lot of Walter's time was going into making sure the building was safe for children who had substantially lower IQs than Ralph, and wouldn't necessarily know what to touch and what to steer clear of. Paige had noticed (though just barely) that her boyfriend had started to get a little more tense as the party grew nearer – fidgety and unconfident, like he wanted to say something but the words weren't coming.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Paige asked for the third time as they strolled together down an aisle in Home Depot. Happy had told them that if they picked up some compressed wood and copper piping, she could do a cool twist on pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

"I'm fine," he told her as his eyes scanned the line of copper; they needed 3/8th inch ductile tubing, and he located it quickly. "I'm just thinking about this gift I want to get Ralph."

"You already got him his gifts," Paige said, surprised. He'd bought the boy a desktop for his "room" because it had more RAM than his laptop, a guitar so he could teach him to play, a robotics kit, and several very thick, very complicated books on various subjects. He'd spent an entire month's pay on the gifts and Paige had felt guilty about allowing him to do it, but trying to talk Walter out of anything – especially when it came to Ralph – was useless. He loved that boy so much, and he would truly give him the world if he could.

Walter made a noise in the back of his throat and plucked a coil of copper from the shelf, starting to walk again. "I've been really wanting to get him this gift, but I'm not sure if he'd even want it, so I'm still thinking about it."

Paige waited a moment, but when he said nothing else she asked, "Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"Not yet," Walter said simply. "Later. Here." He handed her the coil so he could take a large sheet of plywood from the rack in front of him, then gestured to the front of the store.

"When you're ready," she told him with a smile, and Walter leaned in to press a brief kiss to her lips. He wasn't normally a fan of PDA, but times like this he couldn't help himself. He could really tell how Paige had come to trust him, when she didn't press him on the matters that seemed to weigh on his mind – she gave him his time, and knew that he would talk to her when he had a better idea of what was going on. It meant a lot to him.

She kissed him back, smiling even wider, and began following him to the front of the store. "Oh, and Paige?" He said over his shoulder.

"Hm?"

He stopped walking and put the plywood down, resting it against his side so he could put one hand on her shoulder, looking her in the eye. "This party is going to be great – one that Ralph will never forget – but I don't want you to stress about making it perfect. He understands what happened with Drew and why. He may not be okay with it, but he understands, and he's going to be fine. Amazing party or no. He's got you, and that's all that really matters to him."

"And you," she said in a whisper, putting her hand over his and blinking heavily. "I know he doesn't call you 'dad,' but you know that's how he sees you and he needs you, too."

Walter smiled one of those rare, genuine smiles and let out what seemed to be a sigh of relief. "That's something I needed to hear."

Confused, but accepting that he was still thinking through something, Paige just gave his hand a squeeze and led him to the check-out. He had her drive the truck back to the garage (which was technically against Happy's rules) and played with her hair for the entire drive, lost in thought but his fingers constantly curling through the locks at the nape of her neck.

~~00~~

"Sly and I found it at an estate sale," Megan said, her breathing a little labored – getting around had been harder for her lately, but she had insisted on helping with set-up the day before Ralph's party, as well as coming to the party itself. She was sitting on the couch now, a huge, square chest at her feet, and she was excited.

Paige sat down on the coffee table and looked at the box, "What is it?"

"Do you remember when I was in the hospital and you guys came to see me?" She and Walter nodded, and Megan opened the box while the rest of the team bustled around them finishing decorations and game set-up. "Ralph set up that awesome shadow puppet screen for me, and we had so much fun with it. And I know you're all probably going to get him a bunch of smart, techy stuff, but I wanted to get him something that was just fun. Sylvester and I were out for a drive the other day and I saw this and I knew it was perfect." She leaned forward and unlatched the box, flipping the lid open.

Inside was a round base with a tall glass cylinder in the center and two moving rings around it. Sylvester stopped what he was doing to help her pull it out of the box and put it next to Paige on the coffee table, and Walter squinted at it, trying to figure out what it was. Megan picked up the two smaller boxes in the chest and opened the first one, taking out thin piece of blackened tin shaped as a tree, followed by a few other scenic pieces. In the second box there were thin wooden pieces shaped like people, with pivots in the joints so they could move.

"You put a candle in the middle, see?" Megan pointed to the glass tube on the round base, "or a light or something. And you put the figures in the rotating parts and spin it, and it's a shadow caster!"

"It looks like the one from Buffy!" Paige squealed, looking at the pieces. She noticed a few of the human pieces and said, "Oh my god, it _is_ the one from Buffy!"

"It's a replica," Megan smiled. "The guy selling it said his mother had been a huge fan and he'd made this for her, but then he ended up buying her the real one when Joss Whedon auctioned it for charity. The cool thing is, apparently the figures are really easy to make – you just get some wood or tin, draw your design, and then cut it out. I thought I could buy him a few sheets of tin and some pivots, but only if you don't think it's too dangerous."

Paige looked over her shoulder to Walter, who shrugged and nodded. "Happy could help him, if it makes you're more comfortable with that, but tin is really easy to work with."

"I have an extra pair of tin snips," the mechanic called from her ladder, which she was using to reach her LED streamers. "They're really just short scissors."

The mother smiled, "I think that would be fine, then. Thank you, Megan; I know he's going to love it. He could make his own people and use it as a night light."

Megan clapped and took hold of her braces, pulling herself to her feet. "Okay, what can I help with? Decorations? Food?"

"You can help me blow up balloons," Toby said, gesturing to the helium tank he'd rented, and the hundreds of limp lumps of latex on his desk. The ones he'd already blown up were tethered on too-short strings, and Bixby kept jumping up and sinking his large teeth into them, then barking when they popped in his mouth. "We're going to fill the whole place with them, and I am so not patient enough for this." She laughed and nodded and walked over to him while the rest of the team busied themselves with the final touches.

"Paige," Walter said softly later that night as they lie together in bed, cuddled under the covers, her head on his chest and his fingers playing through her hair. Ralph was staying the night at Cynthia's so he wouldn't see the party set-up, and they had retired early so they could pick him up for a special breakfast in the morning.

"Mm?" The woman turned her head slightly so she could kiss Walter's bare chest.

He took a deep breath and Paige heard a tremble to it, and paid very close attention. "Do you remember a few days ago, when I told you there was something else I wanted to get another gift for Ralph?"

She nodded, "You said you weren't sure if he'd like it."

"Yeah," he said softly, "and also, I'm not sure if you'll…if it's something you'd let me get him."

Paige rolled her eyes and laughed, "I keep telling you guys: No soldering gun until he's in high school."

"It's not a soldering gun," Walter shook his head, his hand stilling in her hair. "What I want…I mean…and it may be out of line to even ask, but…" He trailed off helplessly.

The woman propped herself up on her elbow. "Hey," she whispered, then reached out to brush his hair away from his eyes, a soft, encouraging look on her face. "Just say what you need to say."

He bit his lip and took in another deep breath. "I…I want to adopt Ralph."

Paige stared at him for a long beat, until he squirmed under her gaze. "You," she repeated slowly, thinking it through, "want to adopt my son?"

"I've done the research," Walter hurried on. "Since Drew signed over his rights, the hardest part of the process is over. I'd apply for the adoption, and the state would do a home study to make sure we lived in a good environment. So you guys would have to move in here or I could move in with you – we could even get our own separate place – it doesn't matter, though, as long as we're all together and we practically live together already anyway. And after the home study, the state would come in for random inspections and supervised interactions, and after six months of that I could petition the court for parental rights. That usually takes about a year, but given our pull with homeland, we could probably get it expedited a bit; it could all be finalized before Ralph's twelfth birthday."

"Walter." Paige held up a hand to stop him, and he felt like his heart stopped beating in his chest. He was very still, silent, waiting to hear what she had to say. "How long have you been thinking about this?"

"About being Ralph's dad?" Walter asked with a short, breathless laugh, "Practically since the day we met. But the actual adoption process? Since the day Drew left."

"Hm." The liaison began absentmindedly drawing patterns onto his chest with her index finger, but for the first time he didn't lose his train of thought at the touch – he was too nervous, too focused, too terrified of what her reaction might be. "Walter, you know we'll be okay, right? It's like you said the other day: Ralph understands what happened with Drew, and as long as he has us and this big, crazy family, he'll be fine. You don't have to go the extra mile to make him feel more secure."

"That's just a small part of it, though," Walter insisted, sitting up so his back rested against the headboard, and bringing Paige along with him. "Yes, of course I want him to feel secure, but this is something I would really want no matter the circumstances."

Paige nodded again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Okay, well, this is a huge decision, Walter. Bigger than you and me, and bigger than anything you've ever experienced. This is the least temporary decision you will ever make – you would be Ralph's father for the rest of your life. It doesn't stop when he turns eighteen."

"I'm aware of th—"

"I know you are," she cut him off, voice slow and patient. "I'm just saying, this is a huge thing. So before I say anything one way or the other, I need you to tell me why you want to do this. I know you love Ralph, but I need you to tell me specifically why you want to love him in this big, official way, when you know you're going to be in his life for a long time anyway."

Walter thought for a moment, choosing his words more carefully than he'd ever chosen any others in his life. How could he describe the way he felt about the boy? Paige probably couldn't articulate her own love for her son, but then again, he was hers by blood, and nobody would ever ask her to. Walter understood her needing to know this; after all, they'd only known each other for a year and a half – had only been a couple for six months – and this was moving very quickly. He tried to think of every extraordinary moment he'd ever had with Ralph, but they were all extraordinary, and it was overwhelming.

"I have felt," he finally began speaking, slowly, as he was forming his thoughts as he spoke, "like Ralph's father for as long as I've known him. Protective, encouraging, nurturing, all of the things a father is supposed to feel. And I know I'm lucky that you allowed me to take on that role with him, because not a lot of people would have let this…weird, unsociable genius into their kid's life. I intend to be in Ralph's life forever," he said definitively, "no matter what happens between you and I, I will always be there for him.

"The reason I want it to be official," he went on, "is because I want to be able to be there for him without questions asked. Drop him off and pick him up from school without you having to notify them in advance. Take him on trips that you would find boring. Take him to the doctor when he's sick, and fill out his paperwork. I want to drop him off on his first day of college, which he could do in just a couple of years, by the way. I want to teach him to drive and talk to him about girls and, hell, even be the one the cops call at two o'clock in the morning because he got caught doing something stupid with his friends. I want him to mention me in his valedictorian address, Paige," his voice was desperate now, full of emotion. "And I want to finally be able to tell people what I'm always thinking when we're out together: 'Look at my _son_. Isn't he amazing?'"

Paige was crying now. Smiling, which was a good sign, but the tears still made Walter feel like his chances were dwindling away. He held his breath and reached out, thumbing one of the salty drops from her cheek and letting his palm rest against the side of her face. "Someday," he told her gently, "I want to marry you. Not now, because you and I are still getting to know each other in this way, but I want you to know that that is my intention. With Ralph and I, however," he smiled, "we already know each other. I know that I love him, and that he is my son, and I will never second-guess this decision. But he is and will always be your son first, and if you say no, I will respect your decision. I just need to know where I stand."

There was silence, and then the woman sniffled and turned her face into his palm, kissing the heel. "It's not my decision to make," she told him finally, her voice thick with emotion. "It's your gift to Ralph – whether or not he accepts it is up to him." She moved so her head was on his chest again, her ear just over his heart. "We'll talk to him privately tomorrow and see what he has to say." She smiled even wider when she felt Walter's heartbeat speed up.

"So you're not saying no?" He confirmed hopefully.

"Of course I'm not," she said against his chest. "Like I said, you're Ralph's dad, paperwork or no. If this is what you needs – and what he wants – then we'll do it."

Walter said nothing, but slipped down so he was face to face with Paige and kissed her deeply, holding her face between his hands. She responded eagerly, both of them full of emotion that they had no way of getting out otherwise. They clung to each other and kissed and touched and whispered lovingly into each other's ears, and all hopes of going to bed early went out the window.

~~00~~

"This is _awesome_!" Ralph announced for the umpteenth time, as he and a few friends trampled through the bounce castle Toby had rented at the last minute the day before. It was small enough to fit in the empty front area of the garage, and it was a hit – Toby had suggested that they just buy it after the party, and Walter was almost considering it, seeing how much Ralph loved it. He laughed when he saw the boy reach out and grab the arms of a small blonde girl – who he now knew to be Sloan – and they used each other to get a higher bounce, laughing all the while.

The party had a great turn-out, with Ralph's five close friends – Billy, Evan, Marcy, Daniel, and Sloan – and about half a dozen other kids from class, as well as an assortment of parents, Megan, Hetty, and Ralph's two main babysitters, Cynthia and Mrs. Boxmeier. They'd already had lunch – sliders with cheese on the inside of the burgers, barbecue meatballs, baked mac-and-cheese, and little hotdogs with five different sauces – and played all the games, and were now just running around, playing, trying to do as much of everything as possible.

"All right, guys!" Paige raised her voice and clapped her hands a few times to get the attention of all the kids. "Who wants cake?!" Immediately, eleven young bodies stopped what they were doing and rushed toward the long dining table that had been set up in front of the kitchen. They sat down and waited eagerly while Paige and Walter went into the kitchen and lit the candles, and then carried the gorgeous, layered chocolate-and-raspberry cake into the main area, where Happy had dropped all the lights so the only illumination came from the tiny flames. They all sang "Happy Birthday" as loud as possible, and when the cake landed in front of Ralph, he stared at the candles for a long time before finally taking in a deep breath and blowing all eleven out in one shot.

"Good job, Ralph," Happy said, hitting a button that turned the lights back on, then clapping the boy on the shoulder. "What'd you wish for?"

Ralph opened his mouth to tell her, but Megan immediately started making an "eh eh eh" noise, waving her arms urgently. "You're not allowed to tell your wish," she reminded him, "otherwise it won't come true."

"Wishes don't come true anyway," Ralph said, confused.

"How do you know?"

"Because…it's unscientific."

"Well, think about this," Megan said seriously, and Walter recognized her tone as the one she always used to use with him as a kid, to make the illogical seem logical, "you've never heard someone say their wish came through, right? That's because if they said so, it would be talking about it. And the people that talk about their wishes not coming true, they talked about it! Do you really want to risk it?"

Ralph looked at her, then to Walter who shrugged and nodded slightly, then back to Megan. "Okay," he said with a smile, "I won't tell."

"Good choice, sweetie," Paige told her son as she came back with a second cake – marble, for the kids who didn't like raspberry – and handed a knife to Cabe so he could start cutting out chunks to put on paper plates. The kids ate until there was hardly anything left, and the sugar buzz started to set in soon after – they would all crash soon.

"Hey," Paige whispered, nudging Walter's arm with her own, "why don't we talk to him now, before presents?" Walter nodded and swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry. "Ralph," Paige called to her son, waving him over, "can Walter and I talk to you for just a minute?"

The boy nodded and hopped down from his chair, walking over and immediately slipping his hand into Paige's, then taking Walter's with his other. They walked upstairs together, with Bixby following close behind (he never liked to stray too far from his masters), and sat down in the living area. Ralph immediately sensed the tension and asked, "Am I in trouble? I'm sorry I didn't use my inside voice."

Paige was shocked into laughter, and she put a hand on her son's shoulder, "No, sweetie, you're not in trouble. Walter just wanted to give you a gift, but he wants to ask if it's something you want."

Ralph looked at Walter expectantly, and the man shifted uncomfortably, suddenly very sweaty and nauseated. "Ralph, what I'm about to offer you is a big deal, and you have to be very honest when you say yes or no, okay? I don't want you to think about anyone else's feelings but your own – not mine, not your mom's, no one else but you." The boy nodded slowly, still waiting. Walter cleared his throat and took in a deep breath. "What would you think," he said slowly, "about me adopting you?"

The boy glanced at his mother, confused, "You want to take me away from my mom?"

"No, no," Walter said quickly, shaking his head, "of course not. Your mom would still be your mom, but I would legally be your dad. We would be your parents, together." Seeing the boy's confusion and knowing the only thing that would ease him were facts, he began telling him all the things he'd told Paige the night before, about the process and the benefits following approval. He told him about trips and college and girls, and how much he loved him and would always love him, no matter what he chose.

Paige took over the more emotional aspects, explaining how they would all move in together officially (though they basically lived together as it was), and Ralph would have to get used to having another parent telling him what to do, dishing out discipline when necessary; there would never be any "you aren't my dad, so you can't tell me that," because Walter would be his dad. The boy listened to them both with full attention, one hand absently scratching Bixby's ears.

When they'd finished and asked him for his thoughts, Ralph considered for a couple of minutes, still petting the dog, and both adults thought they might drop dead from anxiety before he finally spoke again. "Well," he said thoughtfully, "I do love Walter. And I like being here, at the garage, with Mom and Bixby and everyone else. I know Walter is my dad," he smiled at the man, who beamed back, "and I would like him to be my dad officially, too, because then I can factor him into my future." To Paige, this statement sounded calculative, but as a calculative person, Walter knew it wasn't. "I would like to be able to call him Dad, and go places just us if we wanted to."

Walter was cautiously hopeful, "You're saying…"

"Yes, please," Ralph said politely, "I would like that gift very much."

The man immediately wrapped his arms around the boy, who hugged him back while Bixby whimpered at their feet, then hopped up and laid his two massive arms onto their shoulders, joining in. "I love you, Ralph," Walter murmured against the boy's hair.

"I love you, too, Dad," Ralph said for the first time. "Is it okay if I call you that, even though it's not legal yet?"

For the first time in a long time, Walter cried.

~~00~~

"You guys, look!" Ralph said as he tore off the paper that covered the box for his new computer, "Look what my dad got me!"

All of the kids rushed in with loud, excited chatter as they examined the top-of-the-line computer, but there was a slightly quieter gasp from the adults in the room, who all turned to face the man who stood, still teary-eyed, by the kitchen entrance. He was smiling so wide they thought his face might split in two. Later, when the kids were gone, he would tell his sister and the team that he was adopting the boy and they would all forget his aversion to contact and hug him hard, and he wouldn't mind at all. He was going to be a father, truly, officially, and nothing could bring him down today.


End file.
